{"id":96864,"date":"2026-01-12T03:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T03:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/96864\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T03:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T03:32:09","slug":"exclusive-black-new-york-homeowners-blast-mamdanis-radical-tenant-advocate-cea-weaver-white-supremacy-im-not-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/96864\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | Black New York homeowners blast Mamdani’s radical tenant advocate Cea Weaver: ‘White supremacy? I’m not white’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black New York homeowners are stunned by Mayor Mamdani\u2019s radical-left tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, who claimed property ownership is a weapon of \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d <\/a>and should be abolished \u2014 insisting it\u2019s an \u201cessential\u201d element of black wealth and her comments devalue their participation in the American Dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhite supremacy? I\u2019m not white,\u201d said Renee Gregory, president of Brownstoners of Bedford-Stuyvesant Inc., which was founded in 1978 to help keep black homeowners in the historically black neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read Weaver\u2019s comments. I don\u2019t know where they come from,\u201d a perplexed Gregory added, explaining the 37-year-old\u2019s past comments have become the talk of black \u201cbrownstoners\u201d in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Cea Weaver, Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s director of the Office to Protect Tenants, previously called home ownership a tool of white supremacy on X. Robert Mecea<\/p>\n

Renee Gregory, president of Brownstoners of Bedford-Stuyvesant Inc., told The Post that Weaver\u2019s statements have stunned black homeowners in her community. Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n

Weaver\u2019s inflammatory hot takes<\/a> were found in archived X posts just days after she was appointed to lead Mamdani\u2019s Office to Protect Tenants on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrivate property including any kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy,\u201d she railed in a 2019 post.<\/p>\n

\u201cHomeownership is racist\/failed public policy,\u201d she also wrote, advocating for a \u201ccollective\u201d ownership and \u201cshared equity\u201d of property in the future.<\/p>\n

But many black New Yorkers think Weaver \u2014 a middle-class white woman <\/a>who attended pricey private college Bryn Mawr College and NYU \u2014 doesn\u2019t know the first thing about what they need.<\/p>\n

Weaver called home ownership a \u201cracist\/failed public policy\u201d in 2019.<\/p>\n

Weaver seen in her rapidly gentrifying Crown Heights neighborhood on Jan. 8, 2026. Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cHome ownership is an essential element of black wealth. It\u2019s repugnant to attach yourself to policies that would look to devalue home ownership,\u201d said Marlon Rice, who is running the Democratic primary for the 25th State Senate District in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be fortifying pathways to home ownership,\u201d he added, echoing comments from a recent Substack where he told how he was raised in a stable home because his father was able to buy a brownstone in 1979.<\/p>\n

\u201cPurchasing his home was a tool to help uplift his family out of poverty, not a tool of white supremacy,\u201d he wrote of his father\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

Many black homeowners in Bedford-Stuyvesant \u2014 a predominantly black neighborhood \u2014 agreed, sounding off about Weaver\u2019s foolish declaration.<\/p>\n

Ducilla Joseph outside the Bed-Stuy home she bought in 1999. Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n

The population of the Brooklyn suburb is 41% black, according to US Census data<\/a> \u2014 which is more than double the rate in New York as a whole. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt don\u2019t make no sense,\u201d said 77-year-old Ducilla Joseph, a Trinidadian immigrant who came to the US in 1988 and used to work seven-day weeks so she could buy her Bed-Stuy apartment 11 years later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a blessing to own a home,\u201d Joseph told The Post. \u201cThis is like a rich neighborhood. I\u2019m a poor woman living in a rich neighborhood!<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019m not rich. I don\u2019t have the money. The money is in the house,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jospeh and her husband Ricky Bunting inside their living room. The Trinidadian immigrant has called owning her home a \u201cblessing.\u201d Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n

Philip Solomon, a 51-year-old who\u2019s owned a Green Ave. brownstone in Bed-Stuy for 17 years, called Weaver\u2019s comments \u201cillogical.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to believe that that\u2019s what she intended to say,\u201d Solomon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up watching [\u2018The Cosby Show\u2019], and looking at a brown family on national network television,\u201d he recalled. \u201cIt gave me the idea that one day you can have a home in New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a way, this is kind of like a dream realized,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Phillip Solomon on the front steps of his Greene Ave. brownstone in Bed-Stuy. Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n

\u201cHome ownership is one of those things, you know, you go to get an education, get married. It\u2019s sort of like the pillars of our culture. To do it in New York City is so much sweeter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Mayor Eric Adams \u2014 himself a Brooklyn landlord \u2014 even weighed in, calling Weaver \u201ccompletely out of your f\u2014king mind\u201d in an exasperated X post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHomeownership is how immigrants, Black, Brown, and working-class New Yorkers built stability and generational wealth despite every obstacle,\u201d Adams wrote.<\/p>\n

Solomon told The Post owning a home in New York City is a \u201cdream realized.\u201d Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n

\u201cThat level of thinking only comes from extreme privilege and total detachment from reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weaver, for her part, said she finds the comments \u201cregretful\u201d but stopped short of taking responsibility and apologizing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that some of those things are certainly not how I would say things today, and are regretful,\u201d she told NY1 days after the controversial posts were unearthed. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do think my sort of decades of experience fighting for more affordable housing sort of stands on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani has stood by his embattled tenant advocate. Gregory P. Mango<\/p>\n

Weaver \u2014 who also once said \u201cthere is no such thing as a good gentrifier\u201d \u2014 herself lives in rapidly gentrifying Crown Heights.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rochester native has been a tenant rights advocate for years\u2014previously directing the New York State Tenant Bloc and helping pass the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act while leading Housing Justice for All.<\/p>\n

Mamdani defended his decision to appoint the radical leftist<\/a> as his top tenant advocate after the incendiary comments surfaced, but insisted he didn\u2019t share her viewpoints on private property.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, that\u2019s not an opinion that I share,\u201d Hizzoner told Pix 11. <\/p>\n

\u201cI made the decision to have her as our executive director of the mayor\u2019s office to protect tenants, not because of her comments, but because of her work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Black New York homeowners are stunned by Mayor Mamdani\u2019s radical-left tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, who claimed property ownership…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[42273,57,9,24,55,54,56,8812,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-96864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-cea-weaver","9":"tag-metro","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-property","16":"tag-us-news","17":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}