New York - De Blasio’s choice of an opponent of race neutrality to advise him means that even street cleaning will be viewed through a racial lens, however, putting the lie to his promise of “one New York.”

Unwise Counsel

by Heather Mac Donald 

Mayor de Blasio’s latest hire elevates “social justice” over simple competence.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s most revealing appointment to date shows how far he intends to infuse race consciousness into every aspect of city government. He has selected Maya Wiley, the head of a racial-advocacy organization, to serve as counsel to the mayor. This important position has traditionally encompassed both policymaking and the legal nitty-gritty of urban governance. The mayor’s counsel advises him about the scope of his power, oversees new initiatives, drafts executive orders, and vets mayoral appointments, among other duties. De Blasio’s choice of Wiley portends an administration that detects racial discrimination in every corner of public and private life and that feels empowered to eradicate it.

After working on race issues for the Open Society Institute, the NAACP, and the ACLU, Wiley founded the Center for Social Inclusion in 2002. If you’ve never heard of the Center for Social Inclusion, you are not alone. A search of major newspaper databases dug up barely a half-dozen mentions of the organization over the last decade. CSI’s main theme, however, is drearily familiar: Americans don’t talk enough about race and structural racial injustice. Wiley brought that message to a May 2013 reception at music mogul Russell Simmons’s “New Beverly Hills Home,” in the words of a CSI press release. In addition to calling for more race talk, Wiley argued against “race-neutral policies,” alleging that they “block opportunities . . . for communities of color.” In July 2013, the Congressional Black Caucus invited her to testify at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Race and Justice in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin case. She called for government programs that incorporate the “mind science on implicit bias”—a largely bogus body of work that tries to tease out in lab subjects hidden discrimination against blacks.

According to CSI, “structural racial inequity” begins when banks choose where to open branches and whom to lend to, and businesses locate where taxes are low and workers plentiful. It claims that “right-wing rhetoric has dominated debates of racial justice” for over 25 years.

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