At the end of 2022, the four largest US cities – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston – all had Black mayors.
asserted
cities → have → mayors
It was a historic alignment made possible by the aftereffects of the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement and the unprecedented wave of protests following the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
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It → make → 2020
Six years on, only one of those mayors remains: the embattled Karen Bass of Los Angeles, who is facing a strong challenge from a younger, even more progressive challenger.
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who → remain → challenger
Bass’s opponent is Nithya Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, although the group is considering rescinding its endorsement over her refusal to explicitly embrace the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
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group → consider → Israel
As the sociopolitical zeitgeist has shifted away from Black lives to the death of democracy, and people now fixate on affordability the way they once did social justice, Black mayors have had to adjust to a new reality, one in which their presence alone isn’t palliative, where they are having to defend their positions against challengers from their own left, some of a younger generation less content with mainline Democratic principles.
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they → shift → principles
Bass attributes part of the challenge Black mayors have faced to the country’s on-again, off-again relationship with Black people.
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mayors → attribute → people
“Every now and then we’re popular, but we go out of popularity very quickly,” Bass said on a recent Friday in Watts at Nickerson Gardens, a large housing development.
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Bass → ’re → Gardens
“So those same people that had BLM flags in their yard and DEI and ‘Oh my God, I just discovered institutional racism and mass incarceration.
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I → have → racism
How did that happen?’ are now like, ‘I’m done with it.’”
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I → happen → it
Over the course of three days, the Guardian visited with Bass and discussed the race with her and her team.
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Guardian → visit → her
The racial frustration she feels came through abundantly.
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she → feel → ?
But her campaign, pushed back on its heels, is digging in and fighting to survive a shifting political landscape.
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campaign → push → landscape
The actor Anne-Marie Johnson, a Bass surrogate, described a general “malaise” among potential Bass electorate.
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Johnson → describe → electorate
Indeed, that was very much a recurrent sentiment in interviews with voters, coupled with a frustrated defense of her.
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that → couple → her
As Sonia Hooper, a five-decade Nickerson Garden resident, said, some people have grown cold on the mayor because “everybody is struggling”.
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everybody → say → mayor
She continued: “People that wasn’t even struggling a couple of years ago, they’re struggling.”
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they → continue → years
According to Hooper, some may have had higher expectations of Bass than she could deliver upon.
uncertain
she → accord → Bass
“Everybody thought that the person in office was going to help them get to the income level they were supposed to be at.”
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they → think → level
The California Association of Realtors reported on Friday that housing affordability dipped in Los Angeles, and in the third quarter of 2026, already near historic lows, it dipped again, with just 15% of households in the city able to afford to buy a median-priced home.
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% → report → home
That pressure is reflected in public opinion as a poll in April by Los Angeles Business Council Institute found that 87% of voters in the city said housing affordability was a serious problem, with 63% having considered leaving the city because of it.
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% → reflect → it
So Bass is leaning into her legacy as a native Angeleno and leaning on her staunchest supporters – Black voters – while also wooing those wary of her opponent.
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Bass → lean → opponent
A poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies/LA Times released on Wednesday shows that her strategy may be paying dividends.
uncertain
strategy → release → dividends
The poll showed Bass surging from an 11-point deficit to making the race a dead heat.
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race → show → deficit
But Bass faces some very real hurdles.
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Bass → face → hurdles
When asked why polls show that young people in the city, those who would have come of age during BLM, overwhelmingly support her opponent, Nithya Raman, Bass quickly provides a caveat: “They’re not young Black people.”
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They → ask → caveat
She continues, “They’re predominantly white, some Latino.
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some → continue → ?
That’s the demographic of DSA.”
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That → ’ → DSA
Bass then raises another frustration: “By the way, from some of those white people, young white people, I’ve been shocked at the racial insensitivity, shall I say, shocked.”
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I → raise → insensitivity
Bass said that there were “very specific examples”, and she offered one.
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she → say → one
When there was a proposal to run a Metro line under the historic Lafayette Square neighborhood, a predominantly upper-class Black community, Bass says that she pushed back on the proposal and talked about the historical significance of the neighborhood and how transportation infrastructure had historically been used to fracture Black communities.
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infrastructure → be → communities
“As I was speaking, to see a group of young folks do this while I was speaking” – Bass shows a thumbs down – “cut particularly deep because there were young white folks who consider themselves very progressive.”
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themselves → speak → this
She continued: “But, when it comes to the displacement of Black people and brown people, all of a sudden not so progressive.”
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it → continue → people
The board of Los Angeles county’s transit agency voted to move forward with the project believing that the tunneling wouldn’t damage structures in the neighborhood.
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tunneling → vote → neighborhood
Some Black people in the city would take issue with Bass’s contention that the dissent doesn’t include Black people.
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dissent → take → people
In a phone interview, Melina Abdullah, co-founder of both Los Angeles Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter Grassroots, said of Bass’s mayoralty, “These last four years with her in office have not translated into collective advancement for Black people or any marginalized group.”
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years → say → people
Abdullah was a longtime friend of Bass’s and says the mayor even wrote her children’s college recommendations, but she has been a critic since Bass’s first run, particularly on her approach to policing.
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she → say → policing
None of the four was younger than 55 when they became mayor.
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they → become → 55
Each mayor increased police budgets and some increased the size of the forces.
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some → increase → forces
Bass is now campaigning on not only keeping the police chief: in December she asked the city council to increase the police budget and expand the force.
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she → campaign → force
Abdullah calls this “a betrayal” of mayors who “were elected because of our protests” and “then betray the core fundamental ask of the protests”.
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who → call → protests
…and 38 more, not listed.
The Aporia
