Assata Shakur’s Admirers Deserve Criticism and Disapproval

Anyone who fails to denounce allies who celebrate a cop-killer rightfully earns disdain. Take note of the reactions following some left-leaning individuals praising the late “great” Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard, a convicted murderer of a New Jersey state trooper who has spent decades in political asylum in Communist Cuba.

Look at the Democratic nominees for New York mayor and New Jersey governor: Zohran Mamdani refuses to criticize the Democratic Socialists of America for their disturbing social-media homage to Shakur; Rep. Mikie Sherrill has notably remained silent on the issue, even as current Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy condemned the DSA’s tribute as “shameful and depraved.”

Moreover, it seems that Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, is not reprimanding the union’s Chicago branch for honoring Shakur as a “revered elder of Black liberation.”

Randi’s too busy selling her Trump-is-a-fascist book.

On Instagram, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams called Shakur a “Freedom Fighter and Human Rights Icon.” Bronx Assemblyman George Alvarez also paid tribute: “Her life was marked by struggle, resilience, and a relentless fight against oppression” 

Mamdani’s rumored choice to run NYC schools, ex-Rep. Jamal Bowman, last year justified his decision to glorify the fugitive cop-killer on a Bronx middle school’s “Wall of Honor” mural when he ran the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action. 

Chesimard’s Black Liberation Army — an even-more-extremist offshoot of the Black Panthers — was a Marxist-Leninist gang that spent the 1970s carrying out bombings, murders of police officers, bank robberies and even a skyjacking. 

Bad enough that a few rappers and far-lefties romanticize such monsters; worse that Mamdani, Sherrill, Weingarten and so on pretend it’s OK to treat them as heroes.

At least they’re telling us who they really are.