On Monday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul stuck her whole foot (both feet, even!) in her mouth during a showcase of Empire AI—the multimillion-dollar consortium she's leading to create an AI computing center in upstate New York—while appearing at something called the Milken Institute Global Conference in California. For the record, The Milken Institute describes itself as a "nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank" so you can already imagine the remarks that were made...except for the fact that you can't possibly anticipate just how bad they actually were. “Right now we have, you know, young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is,” Hochul told the audience before emphasizing: “They don’t know, they don’t know these things.” While the statement was quite obviously racist and seriously shameful in and of itself, she didn't even pull a Kelly Osbourne and tack on a "...in the sense that!" Frankly, it would've been about as helpful to Selena Meyer here as it was to the ex-View panelist, but it would've been something. Now, I know what you're thinking. Clearly, Hochul hasn't spent much time in the Bronx—only, she has. Just last month, she toured a legal cannabis dispensary that opened on April 21. No word on whether or not she picked up a ham and cheese on a roll, an orange drink, and a small bag of chips while she was there, though. This is unfortunate since the "orange drink" is something that people actually don't know about, especially people in the Bronx. Hours after her remarks (and a lot of much-deserved backlash), Hochul offered an apology: “I misspoke and I regret it." “Of course Black children in the Bronx know what computers are–the problem is that they too often lack access to the technology needed to get on track to high-paying jobs in emerging industries like AI," she continued. Is anyone else willing to wager she's the one who isn't familiar with a computer... Very cool that our New York governor knows about as much about the Bronx as J.Lo! And here I thought it was Eric Adams' job to deliver incredibly stupid remarks.
