Jaspreet Singh, Sikh Community Leader, Endorses Andrew Cuomo for Mayor
Before 1,500 Attendees, Cuomo Delivers Remarks at Gurudwara Sahib, The Sikh Cultural Society to Share His Vision for New York City
...We know how to come together as a family and how to be united, because that's what the Sikh community teaches us. And that's what we all believe. As New Yorkers, we'll come together, we'll heal. We'll not just rebuild the city, we'll build it back better than ever before. And we will do it together.
- Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
Photos found here
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, candidate for Mayor of New York City, today received the endorsement of influential Sikh community leader Jaspreet Singh at a cultural event held at Gurudwara Sahib The Sikh Cultural Society. After receiving a tour of the temple with other community members, Cuomo was introduced and endorsed by Jaspreet Singh before a packed audience of 1,500 Sikh attendees from Queens.
Cuomo was joined by Assembly Member David Weprin and representatives of the Sikh Cultural Society, including President Jatinder Singh Boparai, Vice President Ranjit Singh, General Secretary Jagir Singh and Chief Patron Gurdev Singh Kang.
In addressing the attendees, Cuomo spoke about his mayoral agenda and his support for the Sikh community.
A transcript of Governor Cuomo’s remarks appears below:
Well, thank you very much, all. Thank you for allowing me to be here today. It's a special honor. I want to thank Jaspreet Singh for his hospitality and all of you. We have a long relationship, going back to my father's time as governor. There's tremendous respect for your tradition and your religion. Tremendous appreciation for all you do for the community, not just your own community, but how you open your arms in the tradition and social justice of spreading charity. It really is a beautiful statement of what we can be when we are at our best. I'm honored to be with you, it's a pleasure to be back in Queens. Queens is my hometown. I have a Queens accent and I am proud of it. It's a pleasure to be with Assemblyman David Weprin, I'm glad he didn't tell you how long we go back because we both look younger than we actually are.
We grew up together. Our fathers were actually colleagues and friends. And then I got to work with David as governor, so it all comes full circle and it's a special pleasure to be with him. As you heard, I was not planning to run for mayor. I had done eight years in Washington. I was in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton, I was the National Housing Secretary for eight years, worked all across the country. Then I was Attorney General, then I was Governor for 11 years and I had enough. I was in the private sector and I was enjoying life a little bit. I even took a vacation, but I was watching New York City and I am worried about New York City. We lost 500,000 people in New York City since COVID, wealthy people, middle class people, 500,000 people.
And I think we're facing three challenges. One is a management crisis. The city is not being managed well. Being mayor is basically a management job, right? You have to manage the city and it's not being managed. Recently the city officials reduced the police force, called to defund the police. It was a terrible, terrible mistake, and now crime is a problem. Chaos is a problem. You see it on the subways. People are afraid to go out once again. They're afraid to be on the subways. I have a daughter who's living in Manhattan and I make her call me now at night to make sure she got home okay. It's been 30 years since I was afraid of being on the subways. There's no housing. The rents are too high all across the city. The city is dirty. The city is out of control, and that's just a lack of management.
The second real challenge we're going to have is this federal government is going to cut funding to New York. They're going to cut Medicaid funding, housing funding, and they're going to put the city under significant financial strain that is going to happen. The federal budget, the Trump budget, already announces major cuts to New York City. That's going to be a challenge.
And the third challenge is what I would call a societal challenge in that there has been more division among New Yorkers, more anger among New Yorkers. And that is frightening because New York, we are all immigrants in New York. We are all different in New York. And New York only works when we say that we accept one another and we accept one another's differences. And when we start demonizing immigrants or demonizing migrants or demonizing Latinos or demonizing Haitians or demonizing Jewish people, that is a cancer that spreads.
If you can discriminate against anyone, everyone can be discriminated against. Our strength is our diversity– but it can also be a weakness when that diversity becomes a vulnerability. And that's where we are now. I believe President Trump uses the tactic of divide and conquer and turns one against the other and that is hate and hate spreads. And we are seeing that more and more. You have felt that discrimination. You have felt that anger and you now are part of the solution.
The 2019 bill that Assemblyman Weprin worked so hard to pass, says it all. You cannot discriminate by religious garb because you wear a turban because a person has facial hair. You cannot discriminate based on a person's religion. Why? Because that's America. That's the promise we made to one another. And if you can discriminate against Sikhs, well then you can discriminate against Christians, you can discriminate against Jews, and that's just what is happening to us now. And that has to stop. And it has to stop here in the city of New York, we are the capital of diversity. 180 languages are spoken in our school system, 180 different languages, people from all across the world. That makes us stronger, not weaker. And we have to come together and unify. I know we can do it because I brought this state through.
The greatest crisis we faced was COVID. COVID was a matter of life and death. And, New Yorkers were scared. We had COVID, first and worst. Nobody knew what it was. And it allowed you to see what people really are made of, how they responded. You responded beautifully. You opened your doors, you fed the community. You provided healthcare for the community. You responded with love. And New Yorkers across the board came together in a spirit of unity and they helped one another.
And that was New York at its best. And that's what we can do. Again, we know what we have to do. We have to hire 5,000 more police so the streets are safe because if the streets aren't safe, then nothing matters. We have to build affordable housing, which is not hard to build housing. I was the nation's housing secretary. We know how to build housing. We built many more complex things. Go look at the new LaGuardia Airport. We built that, the new Kosciuszko Bridge, the new Second Avenue Subway, the Mario Cuomo Bridge that goes across to Hudson. We built all of that. If we can build those complicated projects, we can build housing. And we know how to make New York affordable. We have to reduce taxes for working families. It's just too expensive to live in New York. We know how to do all of that.
And we know how to come together as a family and how to be united because that's what the Sikh community teaches us. And that's what we all believe. As New Yorkers, we'll come together, we'll heal. We'll, not just rebuild the city, we'll build it back better than ever before. And we will do it together. And it is my honor to be here with you today. Thank you very much.
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