Now that Bill de Blasio may actually be close to winning his campaign for Mayor of New York, some of his detractors are starting to let their claws come out.

On Saturday, outgoing Mayor of New York, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, was quoted in an interview as saying that Bill de Blasio had run a “racist” campaign. Yes, racist. According to Bloomberg, because de Blasio had trotted his interracial family out on the campaign trail to support his candidacy–his family has made numerous appearances by his side and his son, afro and all, appeared in one very popular commercial–that makes his campaign racist. De Blasio is a white New Yorker and his wife, Chirlane McCray is a black woman; the couple have been married over a decade and have two children.

Furthermore, considering that New York City is 44 percent white and 26 percent black, one has to wonder what demographic de Blasio is apparently winning ‘cool’ points with by showing off his family. Does Bloomberg think more white people are going to vote for de Blasio because he’s got a black wife and mixed kids?

Bloomberg tried to clean up his words. He admitted that he didn’t think de Blasio himself was racist, but apparently something about de Blasio not hiding his brown- and taupe-colored family members is racist. And that’s not all!

Bloomberg believes that de Blasio is playing a game of class warfare in order to win points with the proletariat:

“His whole campaign is that there are two different cities here,” Mr. Bloomberg said, adding, “Tearing people apart with this ‘two cities’ thing doesn’t make any sense to me.”

He called Mr. de Blasio a “very populist, very left-wing guy” and countered with his oft-stated view that the wealthy and prosperous make it possible to provide services to the rest of the city’s residents.

But Bloomberg’s disses are probably coming too late in the game to change the outcome of the race. De Blasio is the current front runner in the Democratic mayoral primary.

When asked for a comment on Bloomberg’s ‘racist’ statement, de Blasio, unruffled, had this to say: “I’m exceedingly proud of my family. I hope the mayor will reconsider what he said.”

[H/T Integrated Memoirs]
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Jamila Akil is a Community Manager at Beyond Black and White. Follow her on Twitter @jamilaakil