Hinke Y.
02.16.2020
(CHARLOTTESVILLE, DAVINCI) - In November of 2019, Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, announced that he would run for President in 2020. Now, he is one of many Democrats who have dropped out of the presidential race.
Born in 1942, Bloomberg was an accomplished Eagle Scout and attended Harvard University on loans and money he made through odd jobs. He took an entry level position at a finance firm, but was fired several years later. The next day, he started his own business. His finance and data group would become Bloomberg LP, which currently employs at least 20,000 workers and has made Mr. Bloomberg billions of dollars.
Mr. Bloomberg, who was elected mayor of NYC shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, made a massive impact on New York. Serving from 2002 to 2013, he purchased 90,000 acres of land in the cities watershed to preserve the water supply, created a program to help prepare for future climate change driven catastrophes, and started over 600 new schools. With Bloomberg LP at his back, he also formed thousands of jobs and helped to revitalize many neighborhoods in NYC. However, not everything the businessman has done is so positive and justifiable.
For example, Mr. Bloomberg has been under fire from the other candidates for the stop-and-frisk policy he instituted in NYC. He was recorded discussing his policy in 2015: “95 percent of your [...] murderers [...] are male, minorities, 16 to 25 … The way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them.” Although Mr. Bloomberg has recently apologized for the policy, this should and will likely affect his race. As a candidate that claims to have the “record and the resources” to win the presidency, promoting racially dividing programs and further deepening the statistical injustice in our legal system is not a good impression. Stop-and-frisk cases rose by nearly 600,000 while Mr. Bloomberg was mayor, and historical crime statistics of the region show that this targeting was unnecessary and discriminatory. He also instituted a police unit that monitored muslim communtities in search of terrorist leads.
Mayor Bloomberg has supposedly also made derogatory comments about his female employees and coworkers.
In a high profile case, a Bloomberg employee told Michael that she was pregnant and he responded by saying “Kill it!” and “Great, number 16” [referring to the number of employees on maternity leave]. In another instance, an employee named Sekiko Garrison sought compensation for discrimination she experienced at Bloomberg LP. The court transcript describes that male employees constantly engaged in a pattern of sexual harassment.
At the Las Vegas debate, Elizabeth Warren said “Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women, and of supporting racist polls like redlining and stop and frisk.” Mr. Bloomberg’s complex past of insensitivity did not qualify him for the Democratic nomination, and the delegate votes after Super Tuesday reflected that.