Is DSA Racist?
Idpol and its discontents
DSA, once more, is in the news. Walk around New York City today and you’ll find, on the front page of the New York Post, a giddy story about a prominent Black politician accusing the democratic socialists of “white supremacy.” The spat originated on Twitter/X, and the Post was glad to amplify. There is little the right-wing tabloid enjoys more than Democratic infighting. The politician, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, was responding to criticism another Black politician, Assemblywoman Phara Souffrant Forrest, had leveled at a recent New York Times story about Black and Latino anxiety over gains DSA have made in New York City. After the assemblywoman had criticized the Times reporter, Jeff Mays, for failing to note she had represented a largely Black and working-class area for the last six years, a TV host and commentator sometimes critical of DSA, Errol Louis, responded, claiming the Times had acknowledged her point. It was then, quote-tweeting Louis, that Richards posted “White supremacy comes in all forms.”
The squabble highlighted what has become the primary attack line against Mayor Zohran Mamdani and DSA as they continue to win seats in New York City and across America: they are interlopers, mostly white and wealthy, and they’ve invaded working-class communities with their alien politics, installing leaders who don’t listen to longtime residents. This was the subtext, certainly, of the Times story, and now that DSA is on a hot streak, its criticism coming from both Democrats and Republicans. Establishment Democrats, in New York, view themselves as the embodiment of the “true” city, the tribunes of the working-class standing up to a whiter, wealthier invasion. Long-serving Black Democrats, in particular, have been very hostile to DSA. Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklynite in line to be the next speaker of the House, has clashed repeatedly with DSA candidates, and his colleague in Queens, Gregory Meeks—the boss of the Queens Democratic Party—has warred with the democratic socialists as well. These anti-DSA Black Democrats are usually pro-Israel, supportive of privately-run and publicly funded charter schools, and happy to accept donations from real estate developers and corporate interests. Some, like Jeffries, were once themselves products of insurgencies, but they view themselves as defenders of an old guard that is fast losing ground.
The real question, though, is whether these criticisms of DSA have merit. Is DSA racist? Do members embody white supremacy? Are they not attuned enough to race?
