New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing machine that helped put Mayor Zohran Mamdani in City Hall and place four of its members on the City Council, now admits what many have noted for years. The chapter is too white to match the city it claims to speak for, as reported by the New York Post.
The numbers are not new. An internal survey reported in August found 60% of NYC-DSA members identify as white in a city that is roughly 34% white. That’s whiter than the Democratic Party overall, about 56% white per Pew. A 2021 national DSA survey put membership at 85% white. The chapter claims more than 15,000 members; 63% responded. Among non-white respondents: Hispanic 14%, Jewish 12%, Asian 10%, Black 9%.
At its City Convention this Saturday, November 14, NYC-DSA will vote on creating an “Anti-Oppression Task Force” (also called a “Task Force to Promote Equitable Organizing Culture”) that would push chapter leaders into diversity training. The resolution states that the group wants to grow among the “multiracial, multigendered working class” but concedes it has “historically faced well-documented challenges recruiting and retaining people of color” and that its membership “does not reflect the racial diversity of our city.”
The irony is not hard to miss. NYC-DSA has elevated candidates of color, including Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Reps.-elect Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, while its own ranks still look more like an Ivy League faculty lounge than the five boroughs. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, after watching a Valdez victory celebration, told CNN there was “almost zero diversity in that crowd.” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards welcomed the diversification talk, with a condition. “We hope the equity task force is representative of Black and brown communities,” Richards said. “We hope black and brown members will be in charge of the task force.”
The hypocrisy is egregious on its face. Co-chair Gustavo Gordillo, a Yale graduate who marketed himself as a hardworking labor union member with working-class roots, lives in a$1.5 million Bedford-Stuyvesant townhouse gifted by his wealthy father, with another $1.4 million spent on renovations, according to the Post. Civil rights leader Rev. Kevin McCall had already called for Gordillo’s resignation. On the new task force, McCall said it could be a first step, but only if the chapter opens the doors. “Our campaign to hold the DSA accountable and tell the truth about their privilege is resonating with some rank-and-file members,” McCall said. “As a first test to whether their leadership will confront its own hypocrisy with meaningful action, the DSA should open the doors of their convention, invite black and brown communities into the conversation, and listen to those they claim to help.”
Meanwhile, another resolution aims to install a “socialist speaker of the City Council in 2029” to “hold the mayor accountable from the left,” even as the same organization cannot recruit a membership that matches the city. More task forces, more trainings, more jargon about the “multiracial, multigendered working class,” and the same gap between rhetoric and reality.
Delegates vote Saturday. New Yorkers already know the score.
