A Leader Who Defies Easy Political Labeling. Finally.

Many Black Americans have a friend or relative like Eric Adams, the new mayor of New York. We have uncles who bring up the progressive benefits of Black Lives Matter in the same breath as the conservative talking points about Black-on-Black crime. We have relatives who are cops or former cops who do not want the police defunded nor loved ones stopped, frisked and mistreated by officers. We have friends who are deeply suspicious of the system and come up with their own ways to deal with it — in Mr. Adams’s case, proposing that his brother head up his security operation to keep him safe.

But for other New Yorkers, Mr. Adams is a political curiosity, elusive, and they are not sure how to view him after his first month on the job.