Commentary

COMMENTARY: Witness by Witness, Truth of Jan. 6 Attack on Capitol Revealed

Then Trump tweeted: “Big protest in D.C, on January 6th. Be there. Will be wild.” Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D/Fla) called it a “siren call.” The Asian American member of Congress shared how she was the only member of the committee “who was not blessed to be born American.” She was born in Vietnam, from where her family fled a communist government and was rescued by the U.S. Navy and given sanctuary in America. She noted how decades later she was serving as a congresswoman and under attack on Jan. 6. It was another moment of context from an Asian American perspective that let us know that every American is a stakeholder in these hearings.

Published

11 months ago

July 18, 2022

Oakland Post

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a talk show on www.amok.com

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist and commentator at www.amok.com

By Emil Guillermo

That James Webb Telescope is so amazing. NASA pointed it into the darkness of space, and suddenly saw the truth—-stars and galaxies we never knew existed.

At the speed of light, that’s a look back 13 billion years.

I wish all of America could see more clearly right here on Earth just about Jan. 6, 2021.

It doesn’t take a telescope.

You just need to keep watching the Jan. 6 Select Committee hearings.

If you think all that is nonsense for government nerds, consider the statement of Rep. Bennie Thompson, (D-Mississippi) the chair of the Jan. 6 Select Committee.

He knows how important it is especially for the African American community.

“I am from a part of the country where had it not been for the federal government and the Constitution, my parents and many more Americans like them would have continued to be treated as second-class citizens,” Thompson said. “The freedom to be able to vote without harassment, travel in relative safety, and dine and seat where you choose is because we have a government that looks over the wellbeing of its citizens.”

And that, Thompson said, did not happen on Jan. 6, 2022, on Trump’s watch.

“It was an attack on our country,” Thompson said. “An attack on our democracy, on our Constitution. A sitting president with a violent mob trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another. It still makes my blood boil to think of it.”

Yours should be boiling, too. If you were hesitant to call Jan. 6 a planned coup, just watch the July 12 hearing. There’s more corroborating testimony from people in Trump’s inner circle like White House Counsel Pat Cipollone who knew what happened from December of 2020 leading up to Jan. 6.

The story is not good for our democracy. Trump knew he lost the election but kept searching for ways to hold on to power. Things became “unhinged” at a Dec. 18, 2020, meeting when Trump personal advisors Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Michael Flynn (a.k.a. the “crazy ones”) suggested everything from foreign election interference to voting machine fraud to a massive rally with the most rabid Trump supporters.

Cipollone suggested conceding the loss. The argument was loud, but the normal Trump loyalists lost.

Then Trump tweeted: “Big protest in D.C, on January 6th. Be there. Will be wild.”

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D/Fla) called it a “siren call.” The Asian American member of Congress shared how she was the only member of the committee “who was not blessed to be born American.” She was born in Vietnam, from where her family fled a communist government and was rescued by the U.S. Navy and given sanctuary in America.

She noted how decades later she was serving as a congresswoman and under attack on Jan. 6.

It was another moment of context from an Asian American perspective that let us know that every American is a stakeholder in these hearings.

Murphy also read text messages that Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale wrote on Jan. 6.

“This is about Trump pushing for uncertainty in our country, a sitting president asking for a civil war,” Parscale texted to Katrina Pierson. “I feel guilty for helping him win.”

When Pierson tried to relieve him of blame, Parscale texted: “Yeah, but a woman is dead, and yeah, if I was Trump and I knew my rhetoric killed someone…”

When Pierson again pushed back, Parscale insisted it was the rhetoric that killed.

People of color know the acts of a killing mob, and this hearing featured the testimony of repentant rioters.

Jason Van Tatenhove, a former propagandist for the nationalist group, “The Oathkeepers,” warned that the country is “exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen because the potential was there from the start.” And it could get worse if Trump wins again.

Stephen Ayres, a Jan. 6 rioter who went to D.C. because he felt called by Trump, testified he feels lied to. He said Jan. 6 changed his life for the worse. He lost his job, and nearly his house. He warned Americans who still believe the ‘Big Lie’ to “take the (horse) blinders off.”

Doesn’t take a telescope to see how close a failed coup imperiled our democracy on Jan. 6.

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist and commentator at www.amok.com

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Oakland Post: Week of May 31 = June 6, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 31 = June 6, 2023

Published

3 days ago

June 2, 2023

Oakland Post

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 31 = June 6, 2023

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Activism

Community Opposes High Rise Development That Threatens Geoffrey’s Inner Circle

City Council chambers were full for the May 17 Planning Commission hearing, and almost all the 40 speakers who had signed up to make presentations talked about the importance of the Inner Circle as part of Oakland and Geoffrey Pete as a stalwart community and business leader who has served the city for decades.

Published

7 days ago

May 30, 2023

Oakland Post

Geoffrey Pete went to City Hall to appeal the city Planning Commission’s approval of the high-rise development that threatens the closure of his 44-year historic cultural mecca. Photo by Jonathan ‘Fitness’ Jones.

By Ken Epstein

An outpouring of community supporters – young, old, jazz lovers, environmentalists and committed Oakland partisans – spoke out at a recent Planning Commission hearing to support Geoffrey Pete and his cultural center – The Inner Circle – an historic Oakland landmark whose future is threatened by a proposed skyscraper that out-of-town-developer Tidewater Capital wants to build in the midst of the city’s Black Arts Movement and Business District (BAMBD).

The speakers argued passionately and persuasively, winning the sympathy of the commissioners, but were ultimately unsuccessful as the Commission unanimously approved the high-rise to be built either as a residential building or office tower on Franklin Street directly behind Geoffrey’s building.

Mr. Pete has said he would appeal the decision to the City Council. He has 10 days after the hearing to file an appeal on the office building. His appeal on the residential tower has already been submitted.

Mr. Pete said the Planning Department still has not published the boundaries of the BAMBD. “Tidewater’s applications and subsequent applications should not be approved until the Planning Department fully acknowledges the existence of the BAMBD,” he said.

“This (proposed) building poses a grave danger to the historic (Inner Circle) building next to it, arguably Oakland’s most meaningful historic building,” Pete said.

“We’re here to advocate for what’s best for the African American district and community that has gotten no representation, no advocacy, as of yet,” he said. “The (commission) is guilty, the City of Oakland is guilty, and Tidewater is guilty.”

One of the first speakers was Gwendolyn Traylor, known as Lady SunRise, who directly addressed the developers.

“With all due to respect to your business, it’s not a need of this community. I would like to ask you to reconsider the location …What is being (promised) here does not add to the healing of this community,” she said.

Naomi Schiff of the Oakland Heritage Alliance emphasized that Geoffrey’s Inner Circle is a treasure of Oakland’s history.

“Our first concern is the integrity of the historic district, in particular the former Athenian-Nile Club, now Mr. Pete’s equally historic venue, which has been the location of a great number of important community events,” she said. “It would not be OK with us if the integrity of the building were damaged in any way, no matter how much insurance (the developer bought) because it is very difficult to repair a historic building once it’s damaged.”

The Inner Circle was previously owned and operated by the Athenian-Nile Club, one of the Bay Area’s largest all-white-male exclusive private membership club, where politicians and power brokers closed back-room deals over handshakes and three martini lunches.

Cephus “Uncle Bobby X” Johnson pointed out that commissioners and the city’s Planning Department have “acknowledged that you went through the entire design review process without even knowing that the Black Arts Movement and Business District existed.”

The district was created in 2016 by City Council resolution. “At the heart of the opposition to this building is the desire to further the legacy of local Black entertainment and entrepreneurship exemplified by businesses like Mr. Pete’s … a historical landmark and venue (that serves) thousands of people who listen to jazz and other entertainment and hold weddings, receptions, and memorial services,” said Uncle Bobby.

This development is taking place within a context in which the “Black population in Oakland has decreased rapidly … because of the city’s concentration on building houses that are not affordable for people who currently live in Oakland,” he said.

John Dalrymple of East Bay Residents for Responsible Development said, “This project will result in significant air quality, public health, noise, and traffic impacts. He said the city has not adequately studied the (unmitigated) impacts of this project on the Black Arts Movement and Business District.

“This project is an example of what developers are being allowed to do when they don’t have to follow the law, and they don’t have to be sensitive to our city’s culture and values,” he said. The commission should “send a signal today that we will no longer be a feeding ground for the rich.”

Prominent Oakland businessman Ray Bobbitt told commissioners, “Any decision that you make is a contribution to the systemic process that creates a disproportionate impact on Black people. Please do yourself a favor, (and) rethink this scenario. Give Mr. Pete, who is a leader in our community, an opportunity to set the framework before you make any decision.”

Though the City Council created the BAMBD, the 2016 resolution was never implemented. The district was created to “highlight, celebrate, preserve and support the contributions of Oakland’s Black artists and business owners and the corridor as a place central historically and currently to Oakland’s Black artists and Black-owned businesses.”

The district was intended to promote Black arts, political movements, enterprises, and culture in the area, and to bring in resources through grants and other funding.

Activism

Emil Guillermo: ‘Strong Like Bamboo’ Stories of AAPI Resilience at Oakland Asian Cultural Center

The name from the project came from the husband and partner of Nancy Wang, a psychotherapist as well as an ASIA member and a founder of Eth-Noh-TEC, Robert Kukuchi-Yngoho, who came up with ‘Strong Like Bamboo.’ “There’s an ancient anecdote that a single bamboo piece can be bent and eventually broken,” said Kukuchi-Yngoho. “But when you put together many bamboos, they are strong like iron. As Asian Americans that’s who we are as a community.”

Published

1 week ago

May 27, 2023

Oakland Post

Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St, Oakland, CA 94607

By Emil Guillermo

During the pandemic, I was in a group of Asian American storytellers based in the Bay Area on a weekly Zoom call when six Korean American women were killed in what has come to be known as the Atlanta Spa killings in March of 2021.

From that point on, the storytellers of Asian American Storytellers in Action (ASIA) realized we all had stories of discrimination and hate worth sharing.

The group’s discussion through the pandemic has resulted in “Strong Like Bamboo: Stories of Resilience for Healing in the Era of Anti-AAPI Violence,” a community event Sunday May 28 at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center from 2:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.

“I asked myself ‘how do we heal?’ How do we respond to the crises we’re going through,” said Nancy Wang, a psychotherapist as well as an ASIA member and a founder of Eth-Noh-TEC, a storytelling theater based in San Francisco.

“I thought it would be great to gather to hear other people’s stories about discrimination they have experienced but came through it somehow as an inspiration for others to also find solace and support and strength in dealing with what’s going on.

“We all need to know we’re not alone,” she added. “That we have each other and we have allies.”

The name from the project came from Nancy’s husband and partner Robert Kukuchi-Yngoho, who came up with “Strong Like Bamboo.”

“There’s an ancient anecdote that a single bamboo piece can be bent and eventually broken,” said Kukuchi-Yngoho. “But when you put together many bamboos, they are strong like iron. As Asian Americans that’s who we are as a community.”

The free, three-hour event will feature storytelling from six professional storytellers (including yours truly) and others from the national AAPI community like Alton Takiyama Chung from Portland, Ore., MJ Kang from Los Angeles, and Linda Yemoto from the Bay Area.

Afterward, Russell Jeong, professor of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State, will lead a group discussion of the stories. Jeong is also the co-founder of #StopAAPIHate which recorded more than 14,000 instances of self-reported hate transgressions during the pandemic.

Some say it was the remarks of former President Donald Trump scapegoating Asians for the spread of the virus that led to the violent reaction toward AAPI.

The audience will then break into groups where people can share their stories.

The afternoon will also include two short movies on the Asian American experience. The event closes with a reflective song by Kukuchi-Yngoho, and a number by a well-known group of rappers made up of senior women known as the Follies.

I look forward to sharing my stories and hope to see you all at the free event.

JOIN IN PERSON:
Date: Sunday May 28th, 2022
Time: 2:00-5:00 pm PDT
Where: Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St, Oakland, CA 94607
Register to attend this Free live, in-person event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/strong-like-bamboo-tickets-509561551317
*Recording of the live event will be made available for those unable to attend.

– or –

JOIN ON ZOOM:
This event will be livestreamed on Zoom and recorded, same date and time!
To register for the live virtual event on Zoom, please visit:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpceyrpjIoHtGozoJo7reCVDGg2PRXkGKi#/registration
*Our Zoom links have not worked in past emails, so let us know if our long link doesn’t work.

If you have any questions, please reach out to contact@ethnohtec.org.

The program is funded in part by the California Arts Council.