New York Governor Kathy Hochul is facing a mixed bag of reactions to a comment she made at a largely Black church in Buffalo that some contend was “deeply offensive,” but Hochul defended it as a “lighthearted joke.”
Hochul delivered remarks on Sunday, Sept. 7, at True Bethel Baptist Church, in which she reminded the congregation about an inflation rebate launching later this month to help millions of New York residents struggling with the rising cost of living in the state.
But Hochul jested about what the congregants should and should not spend the incoming checks on.
“Checks are coming out soon, watch the mail. OK? OK? Don’t spend it all in one day. Get something you really need. OK? Don’t stop by the liquor store. Buy something for the kids. Buy them some food,” she said, drawing a loud reaction from audience members.
She continued: “Sometimes I have to stop by the liquor store, too. I understand. It’s all right. It’s all right. But listen, the inflation rebate, the middle class tax cut, a $1,000 tax credit for everyone who has a child under the age of 4, all your grandbabies. Let’s take care of the grandbabies that we know.”
The remark wasn’t well-received by some people, including Hochul’s gubernatorial opponent, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who accused the governor of making a “value judgment” about the Black community.
“It’s deeply offensive. I think it reveals a level of disconnect the governor clearly possesses as it pertains to the Black community in particular, and this is a pattern. This is something that revealed itself when she said that black kids in the Bronx don’t know what the word ‘computer’ is,” Delgado told WTKV reporter Luke Radel.
Hochul came under fire last year during a technology panel in Beverly Hills, California, where she said there are “young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is. They don’t know these things.”
She later said she misspoke and meant to communicate that Black children in marginalized communities often lack access to the technology needed to become more adept in emerging industries like AI that will help them attain high-paying tech jobs.
“It’s like the soft bigotry of low expectations,” Delgado said of Hochul’s recent inflation rebate remarks, adding, “You can make racist comments because the nature of the comment speaks to a devaluation of a community. It’s rooted in an understanding of how a community is perceived and the narrative attached to that community. So people can say things that are racist insofar as those things are rooted in a perception about what a community typically does.”
However, True Bethel’s bishop, Darius Pridgen, argued that neither he nor his congregants took offense to Hochul’s comments. He said that Hochul has a relationship with the church that spans decades and dates back to a time well before she became New York governor.
“I was surprised to hear that there were some people who took the governor’s comments as racist,” Pridgen told Politico. “Kathy Hochul being at True Bethel is like family coming home. The crowd was very appreciative of her being there, of the remarks she made, because they were in context to the sermon I preached that morning.”
Pridgen’s sermon was titled “Before You Crash Out.” The bishop said Hochul “was commenting on not crashing out and not making bad decisions, which I had just preached.”
Pridgen went on to tell WTKV that people are politicizing Hochul’s comments and called Delgado’s response “unfair.”
Similar to Delgado’s reaction, another one of Hochul’s political opponents, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, also said the governor’s remark was racially insensitive. Stefanik is also reportedly considering a run in the 2026 New York gubernatorial race.
“This is not the first time Kathy Hochul has insulted the Black community and spoken in a condescending, lecturing tone towards African Americans,” Stefanik told The New York Post. “Hochul is now showing a disturbing pattern of racial insensitivity by doubling down on her arrogant and patronizing tone towards the African American community.”
Hochul apologized for her remarks at an unrelated news conference on Wednesday.
“I wasn’t making any generalization about any particular community at all,” she said. “My intention is never to offend anybody in that context, and I regret that that is the takeaway for some people.”
She continued: “Just for context. I was in my hometown at a church I’ve gone to for 20 years. I’m dear friends with the bishop, the congregation. They’re all my friends. And I was acknowledging a lot of the stress people are under in our communities. I made a lighthearted joke.”
She stated that her remarks were meant to be “instructive,” and that she was “trying to make an argument of how to put money back in people’s pockets.”
She agrees with Pridgen’s evaluation of the matter, stating that some people who weren’t at the church that day are making accusations and trying to be “divisive for their own political gain.”