A Touch of Orwell, A Slap on the Wrist and a Slap in the Face in Stamford

So, this is the way the saga ends – not with a bang, but a whimper and a finger wag. Anabel Figueroa (D-8), a long-serving Stamford politician, who was caught engaging in antisemitic rhetoric in Spanish-language media during her state primaries this past summer against a Jewish opponent, was censured on February 5, 2025 by the Stamford Board of Representatives. The censure comes on the heels of, among other things, the following statements by Ms. Figueroa during and after the primaries several months ago:

• “[Our district] cannot permit a person who is of Jewish origin, of Jewish origin, to represent our community” (Latino Foundation of Stamford, CT YouTube video, July 28, 2024):

• “We cannot allow a person of Jewish origin to represent our community. It is impossible.” (Spanish International Show, July 28, 2024);

• “In my community, we don’t have people like him, from his community . . . Who better to represent us than someone within the same minority? But a Jewish person? Never.” (La Voz Radio, August 3, 2024);

• “[My opponent] is a man that comes from the Jewish community – a community that is obviously starting to gain a lot of power in Stamford and it starts with the mayor” (La Voz Hispana Facebook stream, August 3, 2024);

• “Jonathan, do you know any poor Jewish people . . . Well, Jewish people could clearly never understand or represent my people in the district. (Stamford Advocate, Stamford Democrats to hold expulsion hearing for Anabel Figueroa over antisemitic Remarks, September 13, 2024).

Ms. Figueroa lost the state primaries and, as more antisemitic statements came to light, she subsequently resigned from Stamford’s Board of Representatives, a resignation which she withdrew shortly after submitting it. Her contemporaneous “apologies” were halfhearted at best or pled ignorance and being misunderstood. Subsequent calls for her voluntary (re)resignation went unheeded. She also went on the counteroffensive and played the victim, maligning her detractors and engaging in conspiratorial diatribes. So much for those apologies:

• “Florida is known for their alligators, Stamford is becoming highly infested with snakes[.]” (Facebook comment (since deleted), August 18, 2024);

• “Of course, my words were taken out of context and manipulated,” Figueroa said. “This entire situation has been orchestrated by the mayor and the Democratic Party.” (CT Public Radio, August 22, 2024);

• “They went after me right now and they want to go after those who support me,” Figueroa said. “When is the Democratic town community, when is the mayor, when are they going to stop the harassment?” (CT Public Radio, August 22, 2024).

• “Since the election, Figueroa has said it was also her message when she knocked on doors that: ‘We can not allow a person from that community, from the Jewish community, to represent us.’ ‘And I would tell them why: Because they don’t understand our language. They don’t understand our needs. They don’t understand what it is to arrive here as an immigrant,’ Figueroa said, in Spanish, in an interview this past weekend with La Voz Hispana de Connecticut.” Stamford Advocate, Stamford Democratic City Committee moves to expel Anabel Figueroa, August 29, 2024)

The Board of Representatives, relying on a report by legal counsel engaged in connection with this matter, which advised against removal due to litigation risk, decided to censure Ms. Figueroa instead. During public deliberations on February 5, a proposal by one of the representatives to amend the language of the censure to make it more strongly worded, led to an emergency recess, after which the censure was voted upon without the requested language. Despite the censure, Ms. Figueroa continues to serve on several BOR committees, including the influential Personnel and Appointments Committees and otherwise remains an active member of the Board of Representatives.

This censure is compared by Ms. Figueroa’s supporters to another instance of censure this past spring – that of Mr. Carl Weinberg (D-20). Mr. Weinberg was censured by the Board of Representatives in May of 2024 partly on the basis of alleged “racism” as a result of an op-ed he published in the Stamford Advocate, in which he drew parallels between the “double-dipping” voting conduct by a group of the Board of Representatives, known as Reform Stamford, and George Orwell’s classic tale “Animal Farm”. (“Double-dipping” is a practice where sitting members of the Board of Representatives also occupy a seat on the Stamford’s Democratic City Committee (DCC) and endorse themselves for a position on the Board – a practice which members of the Reform Stamford faction previously opposed.) Specifically, in his op-ed’s conclusion he argued as follows:

“Reform Stamford’s double-dipping hypocrisy reminds me of the great George Orwell fable, ‘Animal Farm.’ The pigs on the farm lead a revolution and expel their human overseers. By the end of the book, the ruling pigs have adopted all of the human behaviors that they had pledged to eliminate. It looks like Reform Stamford has decided to emulate the ruling pigs in ‘Animal Farm.’”

Completely oblivious to the Orwellian irony of their approach, the Reform Stamford faction sought to and eventually succeeded in censuring Mr. Weinberg for hurting their feelings what they deemed to be xenophobic, misogynistic, and racist language by his use of the phrase “ruling pigs.” 

When a reference to Orwell becomes racist, everything is racist.  The argument that these two situations are somehow equivalent is flawed on so many levels. It is like comparing apples to a kangaroo on stilts.

So, as Ms. Figueroa celebrates putting this episode behind her, the question needs to be asked again – whither the Jews? Why shouldn’t local leaders who do not take a strong stance against antisemitism pay a price at the voting booth?  Yet, this thought was treated as verboten as politicizing the process in the  legal opinion provided to the BOR.  (For the record, the whole Board of Representatives is up for reelection this November.) The language of an anodyne censure is so bland that it naively calls for Ms. Figueroa to “heal the divisions” (whatever that means). It should be noted that Mr. Weinberg’s censure in May was accompanied by a BOR recommendation that all representatives complete “sensitivity training.”  I guess “don’t be an antisemite” wasn’t a covered topic.

Curiously, Ms. Figueroa’s censure also requests that “the remaining members of the Board of Representatives, the Mayor, and the community at large . . . engage in conversations designed to heal the divisions.”  (emphasis added).  Is it our fault that she chose to air her antisemitism in public?  Are we all to blame for asking for accountability? Why does a slap in the face of the Jewish constituents in Stamford have no consequences beyond a slap on the wrist?

In Stamford, all racism is equal, some racism is just less equal than others.