Abdul El-Sayed joked about how undesirable a city Flint, Mich., was, questioning why anyone would want to live in the black Rust Belt city in remarks to a largely white, Boston University audience in 2016.
El-Sayed, who owns property in a luxury housing development in Dubai, offered his candid views on Flint at a Boston University health policy symposium when asked about the prospect of relocating residents after the city's 2014 lead-contaminated water crisis.
"You talk to folks in Flint, they love Flint, right, and you're like, 'What the—why?'" El-Sayed said.
"But they love Flint because it's home, and the same reason I love Detroit, and many folks when I come out to the East Coast they're like, 'Why?'"
El-Sayed, who grew up in an affluent Detroit suburb, recalled conversations he had with colleagues after he left Columbia University in New York City to take a job as Detroit's health director. He said people told him, "You are a fool, what are you doing?"
"'To Detroit of all places,' they said. 'If you're going to Cali, I get it, but Detroit? Their winters are worse than ours. There's nothing there,'" he said.
The condescending comments, made as El-Sayed lectured the audience about his progressive views on urban policy for downtrodden, Midwestern cities, are another example of the left-wing Democrat belittling his home state. In 2020, El-Sayed said he "hates" Mackinac Island, the iconic resort area in the state's Upper Peninsula, the Midwesterner reported. El-Sayed has also said Michigan is "not inspiring."
El-Sayed, who attended college in wealthy Ann Arbor, Michigan, before continuing his schooling in New York City and Oxford, England, often sought to raise his profile among elites out east by portraying himself as a sophisticated altruist who selflessly moved to a downtrodden, Midwestern city—Detroit. In the 2016 Boston lecture, El-Sayed said that he "ruined" his family's life by moving from New York to Detroit, and also by choosing to live within Detroit itself rather than in its suburbs.
"I can't do my job and not pay my taxes in Detroit. I just can't, right?" El-Sayed said. "So, you know, I know I, like, ruined our lives by leaving New York, but you’re going to have to ask me to ruin your life one more time."
El-Sayed's remarks reflected an elitist, eastern view of Flint, a majority-black city that has struggled with negative public perception as a leading example of Rust Belt decline. Flint, where General Motors was founded, has seen its population fall 36 percent since 2000, in large part because of outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. The city faced a crisis in 2014 after it switched its water supply source, leading to contamination of drinking water with lead from the nearby Flint River.
El-Sayed has struggled to gain traction with black voters—a serious vulnerability for a Democrat in Michigan. He has heavily criticized his Republican opponent Mike Rogers for buying a house in Florida after leaving Congress a decade ago. But according to his financial disclosure, El-Sayed and his wife own property in India and the United Arab Emirates.
El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
