White supremacy comes in all forms. That’s not some right-wing firebrand talking. That’s Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, a Black Democrat who has spent over a decade in city politics, looking square at the Democratic Socialists of America and calling them what they are.
Late Sunday, Richards unloaded on the DSA after a New York Times piece laid bare what minority leaders have been whispering for years. The socialist shock troops parachuting into Black and Latino neighborhoods care more about their ideology than the people who actually live there.
Richards didn’t mince it. He posted six words:
Then he dropped the hammer with a Malcolm X quote that still stings:
The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.
That’s the DSA in a nutshell. An organization that is 85 percent white according to its own 2021 membership survey, lecturing Black and brown New Yorkers about what’s best for them while treating their neighborhoods like colonial outposts for the revolution.
The feud exploded after the Times reported that longtime Black and Latino leaders fear DSA victories in gentrifying districts amount to political erasure. These are the same districts that fought for minority representation decades ago. Now a mostly white, college-educated, upper-middle-class socialist cadre is sweeping in, primarying incumbents, and declaring itself the authentic voice of the oppressed. Never mind that Black membership in the DSA sits at a pathetic 4 percent.
DSA Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest threw a tantrum at the Times reporter, claiming the story ignored a Black DSA member. She apparently didn’t bother reading the piece that already addressed her complaint. Richards clapped back. The gloves came off.
This isn’t abstract theory. This is the same DSA that backed Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Uganda-born socialist now running New York City. Richards endorsed Mamdani last year. That loyalty didn’t last long. Weeks into the new administration, Mamdani’s people floated a crushing 9.5 percent property tax hike while crying poverty. Richards, who represents one of the largest blocs of Black homeowners in Queens, wasn’t having it.
“New Era shouldn’t price out black and brown New Yorkers,” he shot back.
Homeownership. Generational wealth. Stability. The things Black families have clawed for against every obstacle. Yet one of Mamdani’s top advisors, Cea Weaver, once called homeownership “a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy.” Seize private property. Impoverish the white middle class. That’s the worldview sitting in City Hall’s housing office.
Richards has been here before. He called out Mamdani’s people for leaving the homeless to freeze in deadly cold snaps. “You can’t let the people stay out there. These are people in crisis.” Basic humanity. The DSA’s answer? Ideology first. People second.
The pattern is clear. The DSA loves minority faces for the camera — AOC, Mamdani — while the rank-and-file remains overwhelmingly white, young, and affluent. They drop into vulnerable districts, install their own, and then act shocked when the folks who live there notice the con. It’s the smiling fox all over again.
Scripture saw this coming long ago. “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matthew 7:15.
The DSA wraps itself in the language of justice and equity while devouring the very communities it claims to liberate. They dismantle capitalism by pricing out the Black homeowner. They fight “white supremacy” by practicing a softer, more polite version of it dressed up as progress.
Richards is no conservative. He’s a liberal Democrat who has spent his career inside the machine. That makes his indictment hit harder. When a Black elected official who endorsed the socialist mayor starts quoting Malcolm X against the socialists, the rot is undeniable.
The Democrat Party is splitting. On one side, the institutional progressives trying to hold the city together. On the other, the DSA zealots who view Black and Latino neighborhoods as raw material for their revolution. Richards just named the disease. White supremacy really does come in all forms. Sometimes it wears a red rose and quotes Marx.
New Yorkers — especially those who built their lives in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx — would do well to remember the fox’s smile. It never reaches the eyes.
