When people post their twitter description, they usually include the most salient aspects of their identity. So how does Sheng Thao describe herself? “Renter, mom, daughter of Hmong refugees. She/Her”
It’s great she’s a mom, but why should anyone care that she’s a renter? What is Thao really trying to say? “I’m just a middle class woman who can’t afford to buy a house. Just like you.” See how Thao manages to get in a subtle dig against homeowners, who are widely loathed among progressive voters, who resent anyone with more than they have. Thao can’t come right out and say “I hate homeowners” because she needs their votes and their money. But when she brags about being a renter, she means the same thing.
And why should we care she’s the daughter of Hmong refugees? Is that supposed to make her special? We’re all descendants of refugees to this country (unless we’re indigenous). So, again, what is Thao saying? “I’m BIPOC. Vote for me if you’re also a minority.”
Well, Uncle Steve calls bullshit. Thao is just playing the old Identity Politics game that progressives invented, which is: Anything White is bad, so if I’m not White, I must be good. Christopher Rufo, the conservative writer, describes identity politics well when he says, “Whiteness represents the metaphysical essence of left-wing race politics: an irreducible force of evil, a master synonym for racism, oppression, inequality, and suffocating bourgeois norms; anything saturated with its properties can be automatically categorized and condemned.”
We see this hatred of Whiteness all the time from Oakland’s political elite. Cat Brooks is infamous for her anti-White racism. So is Carroll Fife. Pamela Price has built a career on it. They don’t even pretend to hide it, whereas more cautious politicians like Sheng Thao signal their own racism with dog whistles and codes. “Daughter of Hmong refugees” is Thao’s way of assuring BIPOC voters that she’s not part of the oppression and racism that keeps them down. No, she’s part of the solution. How do we know this? Because her ancestors were not White.
It’s easy for us to poke fun of this stupid, brainless form of political rhetoric, until we realize that a lot of people buy into it, which is why Oakland keeps electing the same racialists to high office. Appealing to anti-White resentment may work with some angry Black voters and smaller numbers of Latino voters, but Blacks and Latinos alone can’t get anyone elected to citywide office. For that, you need hill dwellers, which is to say, White people with money. You wouldn’t think that White people would vote for someone who runs on an anti-White platform, but as George Carlin is alleged to have quipped, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
Am I saying that White people who voted for Thao are stupid? Yes. And they’re even stupider if they continue to support her more than a year into her term. Thao has presided over the worst cultural and economic collapse in Oakland’s history. When I see on T.V. news little old White ladies--the same ones who support Thao--protesting the Recall of Price, as I did last night, I just have to wonder. Are you nuts? Who don’t you just give your house to the first drug-addled homeless person you see, because that’s going to be the end result of the politics that you—and Thao, and Price, and Brooks, and Fife, and Bas—promote. They’re all trying to destroy, not just rich people in Oakland, but the middle classes. Why? So that the “victims” of historic White supremacy can finally seize power, with their philosophy of Now, it’s our turn make the people who made us suffer, and we will extract due retribution. Let me assure you, I emphatically don’t mean most Black voters, but a substantial percentage that dominates the public debate. Readers: Can we not agree that if the wokes have their way, it would constitute a revolutionary overthrow of our 240-year old democracy, in which the politics of racial anger rule? If you don’t believe that vengeance and racial reprisal undergird progressive racialist politics in Oakland and elsewhere, then I’m afraid you’re in for a rude awakening.
I’ll give the likes of Price, Brooks, Fife and Bas credit for this: At least they’re honest. When they show hatred towards White people, it’s repulsive, but they mean it and aren’t reluctant to admit it. Thao, on the other hand, doesn’t even get credit for honesty. She’s just a great big blob of nothingness, standing for nothing, bloviating about nothing, trying to hang onto her job. Without moral bearing, she will do anything, say anything, to retain power. She got to be mayor by aligning with the very worst of local hack politicians; it was a pure power-play. Now that she’s climbed over their bodies to the top of the greasy pole, she could finally start speaking truth and doing things that actually help Oakland. The fact that she doesn’t proves either that she’s too dumb to understand, or too cynical and unscrupulous. I think it’s the former. Either way, this disaster of a politician should not be allowed to continue to preside over the further degeneration of Oakland. We must recall Sheng Thao.