Black Lives Matter Greater NY, local advocates demand change from Gov. Hochul after controversial comments

This comes after Gov. Kathy Hochul said, in part, that “Black children in the Bronx do not know what the word computer means.”

Heather Fordham

May 10, 2024, 9:31 PM

Updated 173 days ago

Share:

Advocacy groups raised their voices in the Bronx on Friday in response to controversial comments made by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this week on the education status of kids in the Bronx.
Members of Black Lives Matter of New York and Black Opportunities came together inside Wildflower Charter School in the south Bronx to demand the governor reverse the trends she says about education in the Bronx.
This comes after Gov. Kathy Hochul said, in part, that “Black children in the Bronx do not know what the word computer means.”
The organizations say that the children of the Bronx need three things – investment in state-of-the-art technology, partnerships between local universities and tech communities and to create a “tech tsar” position to oversee this development in the borough.
“We demand that Gov. Hochul makes the Bronx the tech capital of New York state,” said Hawk Newsome, of Black Lives Matter-NY. “There is plenty of space here in this borough where she can go in and build a state-of-the-art tech center where we could breed the next generation of AI or tech masterminds."
This all comes after the governor issued a verbal apology on Thursday, stating that she meant to focus on the disparities in education the borough faces but chose the wrong words to convey her message.