New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed on Tuesday that his 25-year-old daughter Chiara, who is biracial, has confronted him about his “white privilege.”
“She would talk to me about my own white privilege…she’s usually right,” de Blasio said while appearing at a TIME 100 Talks virtual event for how leaders should respond to social injustice and coronavirus.
“Usually her underlying impulse with me having to come to grips with something over many, many years has usually been right,” he added, according to the New York Post. De Blasio reportedly went on to say, “I started to be open to my own privilege.”
The mayor went on to call for the NYPD sergeants union to be “fully investigated” for leaking Chiara’s arrest report after she was taken into custody during a protest against George Floyd’s death last month. “It was an attack on her. It was an attack on us. It was an attack on democracy,” de Blasio said. “She didn’t deserve to have her privacy invaded. I think that needs to be fully investigated.”
He also doubled down on saying that he was “proud” of her for being arrested, something he had said when news of her arrest broke. The young woman was arrested for blocking traffic and refusing to move, and eventually was given a desk appearance ticket. “She went and was in a cell for quite a while with all her colleagues,” de Blasio explained.
De Blasio’s wife Chirlane McCray then chimed in to say that while she did not know beforehand that her daughter would be going to the protest, she was “not surprised because she was doing what reflects her values.”
“As a mother, I have to say I was alarmed because of course I worry. I worry about my children and their safety all the time,” said McCray. “She was fine. It was, I think, a very educational experience for her.”
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