Last week, New Yorkers chose a new mayor: Eric Adams.
He worked as a police officer for 22 years, and then he became Brooklyn’s borough president, the first Black person to fill that role.
Adams has experienced police brutality firsthand, he told The Atlantic in August. He spoke about one particular beating that left him urinating blood for seven days. He saw another officer intervene to stop the beating, and he became motivated to join the police force.
Still, one Black Lives Matter activist isn’t happy about Adams’ victory.
BLM Greater New York activist Hawk Newsome told Fox News on Thursday, “If they think that they are going to go back to the old ways of policing, then we are going to take to the streets again.”
He added, “There will be riots. There will be fire. And there will be bloodshed.”
BLM Greater New York retweeted footage of this statement.
An unverified Twitter account bearing Newsome’s name took issue with the negative press. The account also spoke about Newsome’s meeting with Adams.
In particular, the account criticized Adams’s “holistic” approach.
Adams told The Atlantic, “We must be holistic… When we are talking about the [George] Floyd case, don’t mix it up… But when we are talking about the Floyd case, we should also be talking about the violence that we are seeing in Chicago: 100 people shot over the July 4th weekend.”
The Newsome-aligned account endorsed Newsome’s own holistic agenda.
Take a look —
“There will be riots, there will be fire, and there will be bloodshed” @BLMGreaterNY co-founder, @IamHawkNewsome, threatens violence if @ericadamsfornyc doesn’t institute @NYPDnews police reform when he takes office next year. pic.twitter.com/hR9Frr1ZUg
— Kayla Mamelak Altus (@KaylaMamelak) November 11, 2021
The news won’t tell you this was covered in our meeting w/Mayor Elect Eric Adams.
1. We laid out a wholistic approach to stoping crime.
2. We explained that the answer to violence is opportunity & ending poverty. Not Police.
3. Our people need healthy free plant based meals.
— HAWK NEWSOME (@IamHawkNewsome) November 11, 2021
Newsome has started national controversies before.
In 2020, he faced criticism for using the slogan, “Burn it down!”
He told Fox News in 2020, “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right?”
He later walked back his statement. “I could be speaking figuratively. I could be speaking literally,” he said. “It’s a matter of interpretation.”
Some activists for Black Lives Matter have distanced themselves from Newsome.
Black Lives Matter Global Network said in a 2020 statement:
Hawk Newsome has no relation to the Black Lives Matter Global Network (“BLM”) founded by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi — and is not the “president” of BLM or any of its chapters.
Only BLM chapters who adhere to BLM’s principles and code of ethics are permitted to use the BLM name. The reason for this is simple: unaffiliated uses of BLM’s name are confusing to people who may wrongly associate the unsanctioned group and its views and actions with BLM.
As BLM has told Mr. Newsome in the past, and as is still true today, Mr. Newsome’s group is not a chapter of BLM and has not entered into any agreement with BLM agreeing to adhere to BLM’s core principles.
The only official chapter of BLM in New York is Black Lives Matter NYC.
Still, no group has trademarked the name “Black Lives Matter.” The movement remains decentralized, and so there’s no way to excommunicate Newsom.
No one person can decide whether Newsome represents Black Lives Matter.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.