New York City’s recent political landscape has been marked by the appointment of Afua Atta-Mensah as the city’s chief equity officer, a decision made by the newly inaugurated mayor, Zohran Mamdani. This move has sparked discussions due to Atta-Mensah’s past social media activity, which included controversial remarks concerning white individuals.
Shortly after her appointment, Atta-Mensah deactivated her personal X account, a development reported by the New York Post. Her account had previously featured posts from 2020 and 2021 that were critical of liberal white women. In one instance, she responded to a comment about insufficient dialogue on white liberal racism with a strong affirmation, indicating the need for extensive conversations on the topic.
The now-deleted social media presence also included posts from as early as 2024, which criticized “white women at nonprofit organizations” for allegedly embodying a policing mentality. Additionally, she drew a parallel between these women and Amy Cooper, infamously known as the “Central Park Karen” following a widely publicized incident in 2020.
Mamdani, who made history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, is determined to implement a governance model rooted in democratic socialism. His administration aims to introduce progressive policies such as free public transportation, complimentary childcare, and increased corporate taxes.
In one of her posts, Atta-Mensah expressed her agreement with a statement asserting that Black liberation cannot be achieved through moderation. She emphasized the transformative nature of societal change, stressing the importance of shifting from hierarchical power structures to those based on mutual empowerment.
Atta‑Mensah enthusiastically responded to a statement declaring, ‘There’s NO moderate way to Black liberation.’ She replied, ‘This is a whole word! I will add their is nothing nice about change and transformation from power over to powe [sic] with.’
Another screenshot shows Atta‑Mensah responding enthusiastically to a post about the TV series Succession. After a user wrote that the show made them want to ‘tax these people to the white meat,’ she echoed the sentiment with clapping emojis.
The New York Young Republicans Club took screenshots of the posts before the account vanished, and accused the administration of attempting to avoid another controversy.
Atta-Mensah’s appointment came as Mamdani launched his new Mayor’s Office of Equity & Racial Justice, where she will oversee the administration’s racial‑equity agenda, including delivering a Preliminary Citywide Racial Equity Plan within his first 100 days.
New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has appointed Afua Atta-Mensah as the city’s new chief equity officer, whose past social media posts included inflammatory comments about white people
Afua Atta-Mensah, the city’s new chief equity officer, reportedly deactivated her personal X account within a week of her appointment
The plan was mandated by voters in 2022 but was never published under the previous administration.
Mamdani defended the hire in a press release announcing her appointment.
‘Afua Atta-Mensah has dedicated her career to serving the New Yorkers who are so often forgotten in the halls of power. There is no one I trust more to advance racial equity across our work in City Hall,’ said Mamdani.
Before joining City Hall, Atta-Mensah held senior roles at Community Change, Community Voices Heard, and the Urban Justice Center, focusing on racial justice and housing rights.
The mayor’s office insisted it gave no orders for appointees to delete or obscure prior social media activity, according to the Post.
Stefano Forte, president of the New York Young Republicans Club, accused the administration of attempting to manage Atta-Mensah’s online history quietly. ‘Zohran’s team tried to be more careful after the Cea Weaver disaster, but we caught Atta-Mensah before she could scrub her digital footprint,’ he said, adding, ‘Anti-white racism is a feature, not a fringe problem, of Mamdani’s inner circle.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to the City of New York for comment.
The account’s disappearance came just as another Mamdani appointee, tenant advocate Cea Weaver, drew scrutiny for her own past statements.
Weaver, a 37‑year‑old progressive ‘housing justice’ activist, was appointed director of the Office to Protect Tenants on Mamdani’s first day in office.
But her pledge to usher in ‘a new era of standing up for tenants’ quickly drew scrutiny after users resurfaced controversial posts from her now‑deleted X account.
Between 2017 and 2019, Weaver had posted that homeownership was ‘a weapon of white supremacy,’ that police are ‘people the state sanctions to murder with immunity,’ and urged followers to ‘elect more communists,’ the Post reported.
She also called to ‘impoverish the white middle class,’ labeled homeownership ‘racist’ and ‘failed public policy,’ pushed to ‘seize private property,’ and backed a platform banning white men and reality‑TV stars from running for office.
She wrote in August 2019: ‘Private property, including and kind of especially homeownership, is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy.’
Two years earlier, she claimed America ‘built wealth for white people through genocide, slavery, stolen land and labor.’
Weaver also encouraged voters to ‘elect more communists,’ months after urging endorsement of a ‘no more white men in office platform.’
A resurfaced video has also drawn attention. In a short 2022 podcast clip, she said: ‘For centuries we’ve treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good,’ adding that shifting to shared equity would mean families – ‘especially white families, but some POC families’ – would have ‘a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have.’
Mamdani said that he and Weaver will ‘stand up on behalf of the tenants of this city’
The 37-year-old is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and served as a policy advisor on Mamdani’s mayoral campaign
Mamdani, who called Weaver a ‘friend,’ appointed her on his first day in office to lead the newly revitalized Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants.
Weaver holds a master’s in urban planning, leads Housing Justice for All and the New York State Tenant Bloc, and helped pass the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, which strengthened rent stabilization, capped fees, and expanded tenant rights.
A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, she served as a policy adviser on Mamdani’s campaign. She grew up in Rochester, lives in Brooklyn, and was named to Crain’s New York ’40 Under 40′ last year.
Announcing her appointment on January 1, Mamdani said: ‘We will stand up on behalf of the tenants of this city… that is why I am proud to announce my friend Cea Weaver.’
Weaver said she was ‘humbled and honored’ to join the administration and vowed a ‘new era of standing up for tenants.’
Deputy mayor Leila Bozorg called her a ‘powerhouse for tenants’ rights.
