Democratic New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said that his 25-year-old daughter, who was recently arrested at a protest in New York, has confronted him on his “white privilege” in the past, the New York Post reported.
While speaking at a TIME 100 Talks conference Tuesday, the mayor said that his daughter Chiara, who is biracial, “would talk to me about my own white privilege,” telling the audience that “she’s usually right.” The Tuesday virtual conference focused on the intersection of coronavirus and social justice issues and how leaders were responding to the issues, according to the New York Post.
De Blasio says daughter Chiara confronted him about his ‘white privilege’ https://t.co/PyjBQx0r3V pic.twitter.com/3tuwwSD4QX
— New York Post (@nypost) June 9, 2020
De Blasio said that he is “starting to be open” to his own privilege, adding that “Usually her underlying impulse with me having to come to grips with something over many, many years has usually been right.” (RELATED: De Blasio Threatens Arrests For Next Group Gathering)
De Blasio’s daughter was arrested last week protesting in New York over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. According to the mayor, Chiara was protesting peacefully, the New York Times reported.
The police union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, faced controversy after posting the arrest records for De Blasio’s daughter on Twitter, despite not releasing records for any of the other hundreds of protesters who were arrested.
Twitter removed the union’s post for violating their rules and suspended their account Monday, according to the Times.
Chiara’s arrest records contained personal information, including her address, birthday and driver’s license number.
Sergeants Benevolent Association President Edward Mullins said that the records were posted to make a point about de Blasio’s strategy in handling the protests, the Times reported. Mullins said he took issue with the message being “that cops are being pelted with rocks, cars are being set on fire and our police department is being held back.”
“Is that why you’re tying our hands, because your daughter is out there?” he asked.
De Blasio called the union’s actions “inappropriate,” saying that “The S.B.A. did something unconscionable, and it’s not just because it’s my daughter.”
“But I’m not going to tell you that it’s only happening to my child, it’s happening to people every single day,” he added.