Excuse Me, Gov. Hochul, You Can't Really Say That About Black Kids

Matt Vespa | May 08, 2024 7:00 AM

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is terrible. No, she isn’t a racist, but what she said about black kids certainly sounds so. It’s not vicious, certainly, nothing you’d hear at a Klan rally. But it’s the racism that leeches out of white liberals, who think they’re helping these communities but are keeping them in the wilderness for another generation. Only they can help these people–it’s that type of dialogue.

Hochul stepped on this landmine on Monday when she said that black kids don’t even know what a computer is at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California:

“Young black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is,” - New York Governor Kathy Hochul, saying something that would get a Republican instantly cancelled, but it’s (D)ifferent. pic.twitter.com/zcntbt8fKg
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) May 7, 2024

.@GovKathyHochul: Black people are so stupid they can only make it in this world if white progressives like me help them out https://t.co/NiohoLHRHA
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 7, 2024

You'd be correct if you thought she should apologize for these remarks. She provided a statement later that day, providing further clarification on this embarrassing incident (via Associated Press):

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says she regrets making an offhand remark that suggested Black children in the Bronx do not know what the word “computer” means.
Hochul, a Democrat, made the extemporaneous comment Monday while being interviewed at a large business conference in California to discuss expanding economic opportunities in artificial intelligence for low-income communities.
“Right now, we have young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word computer is. They don’t know, they don’t know these things,” Hochul said while on stage at the Milken Institute Global Conference.
The remark was not addressed during the interview and the governor went on to explain that her goal is to provide avenues for communities of color to access emerging artificial intelligence technologies as a means to address social inequality.
[…]
In a statement later Monday, Hochul said “I misspoke and I regret it.”
“Of course Black children in the Bronx know what computers are — the problem is that they too often lack access to the technology needed to get on track to high-paying jobs in emerging industries like AI,” Hochul said.