Hawaii legislator releases letter from racist Trump supporter

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Hawaii State Rep. Beth Fukumoto is a former Republican

RACIST HATE MAIL isn’t unusual for Hawaii's state Rep. Beth Fukumoto, a 33-year-old lawmaker who resigned in March from her leadership role in the state’s Republican Party over what she called Donald Trump’s “marginalizing rhetoric” toward minorities and ethnic groups.

The Hawaii legislator shared the letter, dated Aug. 9, 2017 in an effort to bring awareness to racist rhetoric happening in the country.

"I'm so moved by what's happening nationally and I feel so frustrated and sad," Fukumoto said. The letter “was more upsetting than usual,” she told Huffington Post.

“One of the reasons that I switched parties is that I felt the Republican Party was unwilling to confront racism,” said Fukumoto, once consider one of the GOP's rising stars. “Racism specifically in the party and racism as promoted by the nominee at the time, and now the president.”

In the one-page typed letter, the sender mocks Fukumoto's Japanese heritage and links that to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The sender goes on to make vulgar statements about immigrants by calling them "parasites," and takes jabs at minorities by saying, "We Trump people hate illegals, black thugs, Muslims and bombs, and gays who do nothing but ***** 24 hrs a day." 

When she was a Republican, Fukumoto said, her colleagues would dismiss her any time she spoke of the racism and sexism she experienced or when she would point out the offensive rhetoric in Trump’s presidential campaign. She said Republican lawmakers would constantly tell her that it wasn’t true and claim, “You’re making it up. Nobody really thinks like that.”

After the events of Charlottesville, she said more leaders from both parties need to make an effort to not only condemn the hate, but to vote against hate.

"We have so many political leaders who are saying nothing or aren't saying enough," Fukumoto said. "I don't think all Republicans are racist, but I think that a significant portion of the party has been co-opted by this white nationalist undertone."

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Charlottesville: Asian Americans at a turning point

GROWING UP in California, my parents never talked about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. To them, the plight of African Americans and their fight for equality were distant events

To them, the March on Washington was for African Americans. It didn't affect Filipinos or Asian/Americans. (In fact, the term "Asian American" hadn't even been conjured up until the latter half of the 60s.)

I can't remember any of my teachers in my racially diverse high school discuss  what was happening in Little Rock, Selma and other parts of the South. The Vietnam War had yet to reach our living room TV screens.

I'm embarrassed to say, that post-WWII generation immigrants of my parents -- as much as we owe them and love them -- there was an awful saying they repeated from a popular racist ditty: "If you're white, you're right; if you're black, get back; if you're brown, stick around." (Ooo, boy, that was difficult to write.)

Through the decades, that mantra has thankfully and gradually disappeared although it is showing signs of revival among the new immigrants from Asia who have no grasp or background of Asian American history. 

As AAPI people have become more attuned to the realities of America and it's dreams, as a group, we still struggle to find our place in our country -- as individuals and as a political construct  -- and rid ourselves of the "otherness" imposed on us by other people.

The events of Charlottesville, the uprising of white supremacists and the rise of Donald Trump, a leader who has no grasp of history and no empathy for people of color is forcing us to once again, seek a place in this current battle for America's soul because, whether we like or not, it is better at the table discussing these issues rather than retiring to the kitchen letting others duke it out.

The Asian Americans Advancing Justice, a coalition of five legal aid organizations, recently put out a call that perhaps best sums up why Charlottesville affects us why we should prepare ourselves the debates that are going on and the battles that are sure to come over race and what it means to be an American.

Here is the AAAJ's clarion call:

While few Asian Americans trace our roots to the Civil War, our history in this nation is deeply intertwined and impacted by white supremacy and nativism. At the turn of the 20th century, white mobs threatened -- and even lynched -- Chinese, Filipino, and South Asian immigrants, in part for fear they would taint (white) American culture. White supremacist groups helped to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first law to ban an entire ethnic group. And white supremacy birthed “alien land laws”, barring “non-citizens” from owning land at a time when mainly Asians could not become U.S. citizens, and anti-miscegenation laws, prohibiting interracial marriage (a law that in California specifically singled out Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and other Asians). White supremacy also paved the way for the U.S. government to violate due process and incarcerate 120,000 Japanese Americans, many U.S. citizens, during World War II -- an action upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Korematsu vs. United States and never formally overturned.

Given our history, we as Asian Americans cannot stand idly by and watch as white supremacists march through our neighborhoods. Even before this past weekend, hate crimes were surging upwards, including nearly 200 incidents against Asian Americans since January documented through our hate tracker (StandAgainstHatred.org) and the shooting of two South Asian immigrants, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, in Kansas earlier this year.

We as Asian Americans also must not be complicit in the white supremacist agenda of this current administration. White supremacy drives the President’s Muslim bans, seeking to ban entire groups of people based on their national origin and non-Christian religion. It drove last week’s one-two punches from the White House. First, when the President announced his support for the RAISE Act, an immigration bill that would gut the current family-based immigration system, which has brought millions of Asian, African, and Latin American immigrants into the U.S. and remade the racial demographics of the U.S. in the past 50 years. And second, when the White House redirected federal civil rights resources to undo long-standing affirmative action policies. The administration’s purported claim to be fighting discrimination against Asian Americans flies counter to all other evidence that this administration and its allies and supporters seek to advance only the interests of fellow white Americans.

Our nation is at a critical crossroads. White supremacist leaders like David Duke have seized upon Charlottesville as a turning point in moving their hate and nativism mainstream. Without clear and decisive leadership from the President or other administration officials or Congressional leaders, it falls on all of us to resist white supremacy, including efforts to be co-opted by white supremacists who do not and have never had our communities' interests at heart.

We call on all Asian Americans to join us in defending our vision of democracy – one where we protect the vulnerable amongst us, resist efforts to erode our hard-won rights and protections, and fight to advance progress for all marginalized communities. We pledge to challenge rising hate, to fight the President’s Muslim bans, to oppose the RAISE Act and the gutting of affirmative action, to fight deportations and defend DACA, to champion health care for all, and to ensure all voters can cast their ballots. We cannot do this alone, and we will be calling upon you to join us on the streets, in legislative chambers, and on the steps of the courts to stand up for our democracy.

RELATED:

• Trump eases up on white supremacists 
• AAPI politicians condemn white terrorism; Trump's weak response

It is critical for the AAPI community -- especially those recent immigrants who come to the U.S. with its abundance of opportunities available to them -- to know that it was not always this way. Affirmative action, census counts, data disaggregation, employment rights, equal pay, equal access to health care, the right to own land, the ability to marry outside your race, family reunification -- these things had to be fought for. AAPI have bled and died for these rights and opportunities we take for granted. While America was yet a dream in for the recent immigrants, Asian Americans were in the courts, the fields, in the halls of government, on the job and in the streets fighting for these doors to be opened.

White supremacists would like to use us as a wedge against other communities of color. They would like to separate us from others who share our struggle. They would like to divide us from each other. We must not let this happen.

Filipino American author Carlos Bulosan wrote in America Is In the Heart words that still ring true: "America is also the nameless foreigner, the homeless refugee, the hungry boy begging for a job and the black body dangling on a tree. America is the illiterate immigrant who is ashamed that the world of books and intellectual opportunities are closed to him. We are all that nameless foreigner, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy, that illiterate immigrant and that lynched black body. All of us, from the first Adams to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate-We are America!"


The violence that occurred in Charlottesville was violence against the AAPI community. It was as much an attack against the AAPI as it was against the African/American, Native American and Latino communities. When Heather Heyer was killed, a sister was struck down.

America is at a crossroads. We are at that crossroads. In the weeks and months to come, we will determine which America will emerge: one where one group reigns over all; or an America that welcomes that refugee, shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, clothe the naked.

The history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is an ongoing struggle to know our role in American history and how we have arrived to Charlottesville last week; how we have come to this America of 2017. 
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Tiki torches are for BBQs

AFTER Charlottesville, Virginia, let's return Tiki torches back to their original uses.

Trump again eases up on white supremacists

Donald Trump is back to blaming "both sides" for the violence in Charlottesville last weekend.

OMG! It's one step forward and two steps back for Donald Trump. Can anything get more weirder?

After today (Aug. 15), we realize that his statement on Monday was just a phony baloney act to calm down those Republicans criticizing his non-statements about Charlottesville on Saturday. On Monday, he belatedly denounced, specifically, the white nationalists, neo-Nazis, KKK and those who refuse to admit the Confederacy lost the Civil War.

In an off-the-rails press conference, Trump off-the-cuff, revealed that he didn't really mean what he said on Monday. He said, “Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me,” he said. “Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”

Trump’s remarks — which put the largely peaceful counter-protesters in Charlottesville on a par with the white supremacists they assembled there to protest — are a return to his widely criticized remarks from the weekend.

RELATED: Kick out the alt-right from the White House

Trump went on to defend the “Unite the Right” rally’s decision to protest the removal of a monument to Confederate general Robert E. Lee, suggesting that this was a slippery slope to toppling statues of founding fathers and slave owners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Did Donald Trump ever take an American history class?

In a press conference, Trump equated George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with two Confederate generals. He asserted that most of the people in Charlottesville to protest the taking down of a statue of Confederate Gen. Lee. "This week its Robert E. Lee, I wonder, I notice  Stonewall Jackson coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington. Is it Thomas Jefferson the following week?" 

Really? The former two were trying to create "a more perfect Union" while Lee and Jackson were trying to destroy our country.

An unidentified Asian man was seen marching with the white
supremacists in Charlottesville, VA.

Standing awkwardly behind Trump throughout the presser was Sec. of Transportation Elaine Chao, the daughter of immigrants and wife of Senate GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell. McConnell has been one of Trump's targets since the Trumpcare bill failed to pass the Senate.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Earlier versions of this post incorrectly named Elaine Chao's cabinet position.)

Though he was roundly criticized for his impromptu press conference which reportedly caught his staff by surprise, at least two people in America were pleased with what Trump said.

“Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth,” tweeted David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader. Richard B. Spencer, a white nationalist leader who coined the term alt-right was equally thankful in his tweet, “Trump’s statement was fair and down to earth.”

Rep. Bobby Scott, a Filipino/American congressman for Virginia, tweeted today (Aug. 15), "I am extremely disappointed to see @realDonaldTrump miss another opportunity to help the country heal after the events in #Charlottesville"

After researching the Charlottesville media coverage, on second thought, maybe Trump was right. Not everyone of the Unite the Right rally was a white nationalist. There was at least one Asian male seen marching with the neo-Nazis, KKK and white supremacists. 

Who is this guy? Anybody?

The video taped by an ACLU staffer caught the videographer by surprise. Later in the day, the Asian man was spotted again with the white nationalists confirming his affiliation with the demonstrators.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., one of Trump's consistent critics, (his Twitter account has been blocked by Trump and Ivanka) had this to tweet:

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Kick the alt-right out of the White House, say AAPI, black and Latino lawmakers

This photo went viral in the Asian American community.

WHAT'S NEXT after Donald Trump belatedly condemned the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists for the violence that broke out in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend?
Charlottesville may very well be the "turning point" in America, but not the way meant by David Duke, former KKK leader.

The Trump administration has initiated a litany of policies and initiatives that would turn back the clock to when privilege and power were limited only to whites, including:

• Attacking affirmative action
• Initiating barriers to voting
• Restricting Muslims traveling to the U.S.
• Reducing legal immigration by half
• Criminalizing immigrants
• Trying to kick transgender military personnel out of the armed forces
• Assaulting civil rights

The same day  (Aug. 15) that Donald Trump gave one of the most off-the-wall press conferences about the events in Charlottesville, Va., the leadership of the Congressional Quad-Caucus – which is composed of chairs of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) – and Representatives Barbara Lee and David Cicilline sent a letter to Donald Trump calling for the immediate removal of Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka and Stephen Miller from the White House. Bannon, Gorka and Miller, all with ties to the alt-right or have espoused white nationalists'  world view,  serve as senior advisors to the President.

The Congressional Quad-Caucus leadership along with Congresswoman Barbara Lee released the following statements upon release of the letter. Full text of the letter can be found here.

“President Trump's delayed denunciation of white supremacists and their violent actions in Charlottesville, Virginia this past weekend cannot be separated from this Administration's ongoing assault on racial and religious minorities," said CAPAC Chairwoman Judy Chu, D-Calif. 

"This is not surprising, as the President has filled his inner circle with known supporters of white supremacists, including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Sebastian Gorka. Their continued presence in the White House is not only an affront to communities across this nation that were threatened and attacked by the violent protests over the weekend, but is a direct contradiction to President Trump's own delayed condemnation of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK. Actions speak louder than words. I join my colleagues and call upon President Trump to remove these white supremacists from office, and take action to defeat hate.”

“The white supremacists who descended upon Charlottesville have brought vile racism, hatred and bigotry to the forefront of our political discourse once again. We cannot address the dangerous spread of white supremacy in America without honestly examining its influence on the Oval Office," agreed Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. 

"President Trump has elevated hate and discrimination to the highest levels of our government. From the Muslim Ban, to raids on immigrant communities, a ban on transgender Americans serving in our military, attempts to revive the failed war on drugs and an all-out assault on civil and human rights, the influence of the alt-right is clear in the Trump Administration’s policy agenda."

“Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka and Stephen Miller have long embraced the views of white supremacists, white nationalists and Neo-Nazis. These prejudiced ideologies have no place in the highest office in our land. I urge President Trump to remove Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka from the White House without delay.”

What can we, the people do to affect the direction of our country?

Speak up: Talk to your neighbors, your family, and your friends. Have a dialogue about what’s happening in our country and what we can do about it. Acknowledge where there are injustices in your community and organize together to reform the system and fix them.

Show up: Prepare for 2018 when the mid-term elections will be held for our congressional represenatives. Make sure those friends and relatives who are eligible to vote is registered. We need to replace those lawmakers who have given Trump a blank check and choose party over country. When it comes time to vote, get out and vote.

Act up: Take action and do something important. There will be rallies, lawmakers' town halls and marches in the future that you can join. Don’t give in to, as Martin Luther King, Jr. would say, “the appalling silence of good people.”

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Aug. 12, 2017: Racists wake up America, but not Trump

White nationalists displayed confederate and nazi symbols in Charlottesville, Virginia Aug. 12.

THE DEAFENING SILENCE of Donald Trump this morning woke me up.

When he finally did say something about the violence in Chalottesville, Va., his tepid response drew flak from Republicans and Democrats.

While white nationalists openly marched through the streets of Charlottesvill, Va., clashing against police and counter-protestors, the normally quick-to-tweet Trump stayed away from any messaging on social media until his wife broke the silence with her own tweet.

The "Unite the Right" rally was originally planned to show opposition to the planned removal of a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the city's Emancipation Park.

As the clashes continued into the afternoon, the leader of the U.S., Donald Trump, stayed silent while other Republican leaders - such as Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio, both of whom are not entirely innocent in enabling the ultra far right, were quick to condemn the violence and hate. 

Oddly, Trump's immigrant wife, Melania, was the first person from the White House to note the violence. Usually, the Trump White House strategists don't like the First Lady upstaging her husband. It would be glorious if she acted on her own without consulting her husband.

Trump's failure to quicky condemn the violence that his presidency and campaign have spawned speaks volumes about where he stands and who is giving him PR advice. Trump's strategy to divide the country and to curry the favor of the disgruntled white male racists is becoming more and more apparent.

Because his wife beat him to the punch, do you think Trump felt compelled to release his own denunciation of Charlottesville violence - 45 minutes - after Melania.

When Trump finally did address the Charlottesville situation in a pre-sceduled event where he was supposed to talk about veterans affairs, his comments fell far short of condemning the white nationalists. Instead, he suggested "many sides" were to blame for the deadly violence. There was no mention of new-Nazis, the KKK, white nationalists or the alt-right.

As is his custom, he blamed everyone else but himself. Instead of taking any responsibility for emboldening the racist organizations taking part in the "Unite the Right" rally. The violence, he said,  has "been going on for a long, long time" before he took office.

Trump was getting heat from all sides, not just from his usual critics from the Democratic side of aisle. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the longest serving Republican senator in history, said on Twitter: "We should call evil by its name. My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home."

Let's not forget, Trump has still not tweeted anything condemning the bombing of a mosque in Minnesota a week ago. Perhaps he doesn't want t offend his supporters or admit that his anti-Muslim rhetoric is inspiring violence.

***

Why Charlottseville? Generally, the city is a liberal community as the home of the University of Virginia. Eighty percent of its voters voted for Hillary. 

The city council voted to remove the statues of Confederate Generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. Litigation has stalled the statues' removal.

The white supremacists rallied around the statues as a form of misdirected pride in their heritage. 

Let's be clear, Lee is a traitor who tried to bring down the Union. He is not a heroic figure. The Civil War was not about "states rights," it was about the right to own another human being - slavery.

A statue to a traitor is not honoring our heritage, it's a reminder of how low people can go to rationalize evil.

The Charlottesville city council was correct in renaming the Robert E. Lee Park to Emancipation Park and the removal of the Lee statue is the correct vote.

Friday night, as a warmup to today's tragic events, about 100 white supremacists marched through the University of Virginia campus. It was chilling to see them carrying torches. The image conjured up images of the hooded KKK when they made their night rides to intimidate and kill African/Americans.

The torches being used were tiki-torches that you can buy in any garden store or Pier One outlet.  The irony is, those torches were more than likely made in China.

The white nationalists and their tiki-torches.

***

PTSD: The events of the day was the removal of a scab on an unhealed wounds. All the hurt caused by the thousands of micro-aggressions that people of color suffered in their lives came rushing forth as if the wound was inflicted yesterday.

All the racist slurs, the jokes, the unintended slights, the invisibility, the feelings of being inadequate, of being told you're not good enough, the rejections, the bullying, the hurt that all these incidents caused and which I repressed in order to keep my sanity came rushing back in a series of flashbacks. 

***

Who are these racists? I think it is pretty safe to say that not one of the terrorists in Charlottsville was a Muslim or one of those "bad hombres" Trump has railed against or is trying to target with his immigration policies.

The incidents brought Kurt Bardella back onto the media to explain the alt-right to cable news anchors. Bardella, a Korean who was adopted as a baby, was a consultant to Brietbart News. He quit that job when he realized the violent nature of his clients.

Various terms were used to describe the terrorists: white nationalist, neo-Nazis, facists, white supremacists, the alt-right. To me, they are cut from the same cloth. One more term that describes the demonstrators could/should be added, "Trump supporters." 

No less than David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan, linked all the ultra right-wing groups to Trump in a tweet that responded to Trump after Trump condemned the violence, (but not white supremacists), 

“This represents a turning point for the people of this country,” said Duke earlier in the day at the rally. “We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in, that’s why we voted for Donald Trump. Because he said he’s going to take our country back. That’s what we gotta do.”

These ultra far right groups believe they have gained legitimacy because some of their members are on the White House staff as Trump advisors. Steve Bannon and  Steven Miller. They see Trump as their champion.

For someone quick to attack his critics, his refusal to utter KKK, new-Nazies, facists or white nationalists is telling. The only other group to be spared his twitter wrath is Russia and Putin.

Let's be very clear! The targets of these wackos are people of color: Asians, African Americans, Latinos. When they here Trump's campaign cry of "Lets Make America Great Again," what they hear is "Let's make American white again!."

***

In the afternoon, one of white nationalists drove his car at high speed into a crowd of counterprotestors, killing one woman and injuring 19, several seriously. 

The driver was arrested and identified as James Alex Fields, Jr., a 20-year-old resident of Ohio.

A police helicopter monitoring the protests crashed killing the pilot and a passenger.  The crash is still under investigation.

Almost as an afterthought, Trump finally tweeted his sympathies for the three who died.

Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions said that the Department of Justice will investigate the Charlottesville violence.

***

Calling out the alt-right: Virginia  Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, was did not mince words in his strong denunciation of the right-wing groups:

"I have a message to all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today. Our message is plain and simple. Go home," said McAuliffe at a press conference Saturday evening. "You are not wanted in this great commonwealth."

"You came here today to hurt people, and you did hurt people," the governor said. "But my message is clear. We are stronger than you. You have made our commonwealth stronger. You will not succeed."

"There is no place for you here, there is no place for you in America," he continued.

Finally, a politician with the guts to call out the racists and bigots.
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