Black Lives Matter Greater New York co-founder Hawk Newsome said Thursday on Fox News show “America’s Newsroom” that New York City Mayor Eric Adams was a “c**n” and “a white man in blackface.’

Co-host Bill Hemmer got the ball rolling:

HEMMER: The subject is African-Americans. I would also argue White lives matter, too. Everybody’s life matters here. What the mayor contends, though, is that the same reaction is not given. What would you say to him?

NEWSOME: It was smooth the way you threw White lives matters in there. Our problem is when Black lives are oppressed and don’t receive justice nobody cares, nothing happens. Something happens to a White person the world moves, right? So, let’s get back to Eric Adams. This mayor who’s a Democrat but he spews conservative and Republican talking points. At the end of the day, we have a name for someone like this. And this is someone we’d call a c**n, right?

HEMMER: Whoa!

NEWSOME: He is a Black man – he’s a White man in blackface, and a very conservative-minded White man, at that.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the c-word term mentioned above as “offensive —used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a Black person.”

The Racial Slur Database describes its origins:

Probably refers to the Portuguese word for slave pens or barracks “baracoons”. Could also have meaning as a shortening of ‘raccoon’, as raccoons have a tendency to steal.  Possibly from Dr. Carleton Coon, who, in the mid-1960’s, theorized that blacks were less evolved than whites.

Calling Adams “a White man in blackface,” meanwhile, is obviously an insult. Newsome has a history of such controversial comments, and has in the past blasted the national BLM organization for its purchase of luxury homes.

The NY Post reported last November that Newsome “likes to wear a bullet-proof vest and chew on a fat cigar when he strolls through his Bronx neighborhood.” Back in November, 2021, he threatened New York with violence if then Mayor-elect (now sitting Mayor) Adams implemented his plan to bring back plainclothes anti-crime cops.  “There will be riots,” he said outside Borough Hall in Brooklyn. “There will be fire, and there will be bloodshed.”

Despite his past rhetoric, one wishes he could use less inflammatory language in what should have been a serious interview. Why couldn’t he just say, “I strongly disagree with how Mayor Adams is handling crime?” To lower the dialogue to the point where he’s throwing out personal insults and slurs serves no one. Newsome may very well have some valid points and interesting things to say, but most people will never hear them because they’ll be too stunned by his incendiary rhetoric. This does not advance the debate; in fact, it hinders it.