{"id":41709,"date":"2025-07-05T21:24:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T21:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/41709\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T21:24:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T21:24:21","slug":"zohran-mamdani-said-identifying-himself-as-african-american-would-be-misleading-on-campaign-trail-just-months-before-columbia-bombshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/41709\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani said identifying himself as African American would be \u2018misleading\u2019 on campaign trail \u2014 just months before Columbia bombshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic socialist New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani<\/a> once admitted that identifying himself as African American would be \u201cmisleading\u201d \u2014 despite him ticking that as his race on his Columbia University application<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Newly resurfaced video captured the 33-year-old making the acknowledgment as he was sprayed with questions on the campaign trial about his heritage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an Indian, Ugandan, New Yorker,\u201d Mamdani told black performance artist Crackhead Barney when she approached him on the street in April.<\/p>\n

A resurfaced video of Zohran Mamdani showed him saying it would be \u201cmisleading\u201d to identify himself as African American. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Zohran Mamdani is the leading contender in the NYC mayoral race. REUTERS<\/p>\n

Asked if he would claim African American status, the socialist insisted: \u201cNo I would not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud to be Ugandan but I think that is misleading,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Every morning, the NY POSTcast <\/a>offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post\u2019s signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The clip resurfaced and started spreading on social media soon after the New York Times reported on Thursday that he\u2019d checked both \u201cAsian\u201d and \u201cBlack or African American\u201d on his application to the Ivy League university when he was a high school senior in 2009.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, told the outlet he doesn\u2019t identify as either race but rather \u201can American who was born in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoral primary. Kyle Mazza\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cMost college applications don\u2019t have a box for Indian-Ugandans, so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background,\u201d the lawmaker said as he defended the move.<\/p>\n

He noted that he specified \u201cUgandan\u201d in a section of the application that allowed for more detailed personal information.<\/p>\n

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a press conference with union leaders and supporters in New York City, July 2, 2025. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though these boxes are constraining, I wanted my college application to reflect who I was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani insisted he didn\u2019t select the two races to gain an edge in the admissions process \u2014 but because of the limited options available on the college application.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic socialist New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani once admitted that identifying himself as African American would…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5341,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-41709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-metro","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-nyc-mayoral-election-2025","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-us-news","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114802738161661841","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}