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Zohran Mamdani’s final pitch to be mayor of New York City is a cynical, divisive, and frankly, just flat-out false accusation that Gotham is a hotbed of vile Islamophobia. In a word, it is nonsense.
So far, Mamdani has told two personal stories about alleged anti-Muslim hate in New York, most famously one about his aunt, who turned out not to be his aunt, feeling uncomfortable riding the subway after nearly 3,000 people were killed in the mass hate crime that was 9/11.
Mamdani was reduced to tears on the sidewalk as he told supporters the terrible tale. But there’s only one problem, even if this story is true (which is far from certain), it's not Islamophobia, it was just his non-aunt having a normal reaction.
Mamdani doesn’t claim that anyone directed any animosity towards this woman, who he now claims was a distant relative who is no longer alive. She wasn’t jeered, heckled or abused in any way. She just feared that she might be. It makes sense that a member of any group would feel uneasy after mass murder committed in the name of that group.
Mamdani’s second and final example of Islamophobia, perhaps unsurprisingly, also involves 9/11. He claims that as a student at a fancy prep school in Manhattan, after the Twin Towers were attacked, his teacher took him out of class and warned him that he may face bullying.
New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani delivers remarks in the Bronx, New York City, on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. (Fox News Digital/Deirdre Heavey)
Let’s be clear, in 2001, top prep schools were absolute bastions of far-left political and educational theories, so why this teacher thought that non-Muslim students would act out against young Mamdani makes little sense.
Once again, though, this example of Islamophobia is missing any actual Islamophobia. Mamdani never says that he was bullied, just that his progressive prep school teacher worried he might be.
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And that’s it. That is the full and complete list of allegedly Islamophobic incidents that brought Mamdani to tears nearly a quarter-century later. So why on earth is he running around saying, "To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity?"
Mamdani wants to convince New Yorkers that today’s city is something out of Spike Lee’s "Do The Right Thing," that even if people aren’t hurling racial slurs at each other dead into the camera, they are at least thinking it.
It is a ridiculous and dangerous claim. I lived in Bay Ridge, the Gotham nabe with the highest percentage of Muslims in the city, and I can assure that Mamdani’s demand for Islamophobia far exceeds New York City’s infinitesimal supply.
This fever dream that Mamdani has, that he is surrounded by horrid bigotry, not only shows a certain disdain for much of the city, it betrays a great ignorance of it.
This photo by Roberto Robanne, provided in New York by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, included in their "September 11 Attacks Timeline," shows the impact of one of the airplanes during the World Trade Center attacks in New York, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP/National September 11 Memorial & Museum)
Are there a handful of places where old timers spit in the broken glass and wax poetic about the good old days before Muslim immigration? Maybe, but this attitude is so insignificant as to be almost invisible.
Mamdani’s false allegation of the Big Apple as a hotbed of Islamophobia should worry all New Yorkers. After all, what measures might he put in place to combat this imaginary problem?
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Will Mamdani’s public schools push this schlock on Gotham’s kids, insisting to them that they live in a racist city? Worse, will anti-terrorism efforts be shut down so as not to give the appearance of Islamophobia?
In 2016, the late, great comedian Norm Macdonald quipped, "What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims!"
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For Zohran Mamdani, this is not a joke, it is actually how he thinks about the world. That is a very bad thing for someone who wants to lead the city that is arguably the number one target of Islamist terrorism in the world.
In all likelihood, Zohran Mamdani is going to be mayor of New York very soon. He owes it to the people of the city to give up this pretense that they are awash in Muslim hatred. It may be a politically convenient lie for pundits and sociologists, but it is no way to lead the largest, most diverse city in the nation.
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Give it up, Zohran. Nobody in New York City hates you or anybody else for being a Muslim, despite your 9/11 tales. In fact, the utter lack of anti-Muslim bigotry after the attack is a testament to solid values of Gotham.
Only a Democrat Socialist could be on the precipice of being elected mayor of New York, at age 34, and conclude it is a sign of massive Islamophobia, when in fact, it is clear evidence that exactly the opposite is true.
