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By Kate Plummer
Senior US News Reporter
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More resurfaced social media posts about homeownership have emerged from the Zohran Mamdani staffer Cea Weaver, while it has also been claimed that her father managed a rental property.
Weaver, who was appointed by new New York City Mayor Mamdani as director for the newly revitalized Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, has garnered criticism after old tweets surfaced in which she compared homeownership to "a weapon of white supremacy."
Now, more posts on Facebook have emerged in which she linked gentrification to "structural racism," while claims have circulated that her father, Stewart Weaver, is a landlord.
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Weaver’s X profile is currently deactivated. Newsweek contacted Mamdani’s press office for comment by email on Monday morning and Stewart Weaver on Wednesday morning.
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Why It Matters
Criticism of Mamdani's staffing choices might affect the new mayor's standing as he starts his term in office, and affect his trust in his staff, though his office told the New York Times that Weaver had been vetted.
It may also cause people to question whether he, too, believes in the ideas espoused by his staff members and whether he plans to enact policies based on those ideas as mayor.
What To Know
According to UnHerd, in 2017, Weaver said “moving to a gentrifying neighborhood” or "to the suburbs" is akin to “structural racism."
She also said the government has a "sacred right to seize private property."
Newsweek has not independently verified these posts.
It follows previously unearthed social media content Weaver shared about housing. In a post published in August 2019 on the social media platform then known as Twitter, Weaver wrote: "Private property including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy."
In another clip resurfaced by the conservative X account "PNW Conservative," Weaver said that "for centuries, we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good" and that in the future we will transition to treating it as a collective good under a model of 'shared equity.'"
In the resurfaced clip, which is undated, she said: "It will mean that families, especially white families, are going to have a different relationship to property than the one we currently have."
In another post resurfaced on X, Weaver said on June 13, 2018: "Seize private property!"
Meanwhile, Weaver's father, Stewart Weaver, was reported in 2023 to own a home in Rochester, according to real estate publication The Real Deal. At the time, a spokesperson for Housing Justice for All, an organization Cea Weaver worked for at the time, told the publication that Stewart Weaver “manages an additional rental property with a family member.”
What People Are Saying
Weaver wrote on Bluesky last year: "There are lots of things the mayor CANT do on housing, but freezing the rent is one of the only things they can unilaterally do for 2.4 million New York renters. Policy plans are great, so is a rent freeze."
Jon Levine of The Washington Free Beacon said, "Understand that if Cea Weaver spoke about any other race the way she did about white people — the New York Times would be calling her a stone cold racist not a 'firebrand'." He shared a screenshot of the NYT's headline, "Cea Weaver Has Long Been a Firebrand. Mamdani Is Standing by Her."
The New York Post said on X, "Zohran Mamdani's woke, privileged tenant advocate Cea Weaver breaks down crying when asked about hypocritical gentrification comments."
What Happens Next
Mamdani will continue facing scrutiny over his political appointments as he seeks to implement his democratic socialist agenda in New York City.
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