COMMENTARY: Trump’s ‘Yellow Peril’ Rhetoric Brings Racism to 2024 Campaign

Of course, Biden has allowed the presidential archive to retrieve the documents. There was no need for a subpoena, as was the case with Trump’s haul of documents, many of which were highly classified.

But in Trump’s mind, the boxes are his bridge to get to another issue: The House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

something with Biden’s boxes.

“He had boxes sent to Chinatown, Chinatown,” Trump said to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in response to questions about the Presidential Records Act. “Chinatown, where they don’t speak even English in that Chinatown we’re talking about.”

By Emil Guillermo

If you were an Asian American watching that CNN Town Hall in New Hampshire last week, then you know there’s cause for concern.

This was Donald Trump’s big national reveal of his new xenophobic tic.

The man who made the phrases “Kung Flu” and “China Virus” the scourge of Asian America – leading to thousands of transgressions, often violent, toward AAPIs during the pandemic – now has a new trick to deploy.

Considering how he loves to squint his eyes as he emphatically says, “CHY-nah,” it’s the perfect racist follow-up for 2024.

In this new campaign, Trump will now say “Chinatown” more times than a lost tourist with a hankering for egg rolls and sweet and sour pork.

Chinatown, Chinatown, Chinatown. With zeal.

In Trump’s mind, this is as emotionally charged and divisive as it gets in the next campaign.

And since it’s just us Asians, no one will notice, because no one notices us if we don’t speak out. Not even during AANHPI Heritage Month.

So, let me be offended for us all.

The Chinatown slur is made to order for Trump.

When the topic of Mar-a-Lago and the unlawful handling of presidential documents comes up, as it will in this campaign, especially if more criminal indictments are to come, Trump is ready to have Chinatown on the tip of his tongue.

Why? Because Vice President Joe Biden once had an office in D.C.’s Chinatown. And that’s where Biden kept some of those presidential records he shouldn’t have had.

California Black Media Briefs ...

Continued from page 2 rights groups, corrections officers, educators, legal scholars, and medical experts.

Several formerly incarcerated individuals are on the council, which is chaired by Dr. Brie Williams, San Quentin Warden Ronald Broomfield, and Amity Foundation President and CEO Doug Bond.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg was named the governor’s lead advisor, making him the lead liaison between the council and the governor’s office.

The other members are:

Scott Budnick, founder of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition; Neil Flood, state vice president for the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn.; Tinisch Hollins, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice; Katie James, chief of the Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Office of Victim and Survivor Rights and Services; Terah Lawyer-Harper, executive director of Creating Restorative Opportunities and Programs; Kenyatta Leal, executive director of the Next Chapter Project; Jody Lewen, president of Mount Tamalpais College; Sam Lewis, executive director of the

That investigation has revealed some connections between Hunter Biden and Chinese-based energy companies owned by high-level Chinese officials with connections to the Chinese military and the Chinese political elite.

Does Joe Biden have anything to do with that? No.

But Hunter Biden has big money deals with Chinese companies. And Joe Biden has those archive boxes in Chinatown.

It’s only relevant in the same illogical way Trump made the Obama “Birther” conspiracy a political thing, and a general nuisance. It made no sense and was based on a lie that Obama was not born in the U.S.

But if Trump lovers ate up that xenophobic smear, they’ll love the “Biden’s boxes in Chinatown” treachery.

It’s Trump’s 2024 racist smear. Biden’s boxes—in Chinatown.

To Trump, it’s proof Biden’s in bed, or at least in boxes, with the communists and China President Xi.

And what of Trump’s bootlicking bromance with Putin in Helsinki in 2018?

Nothing like Biden’s boxes in Chinatown.

Trump has been practicing this since last month when the House Oversight Committee led by Rep. James Comer issued its report. Even the Wall Street Journal admits there’s no smoking gun in any of it, and nothing really connects the president to his son’s business dealings.

But Biden has boxes in Chinatown and that’s good enough for Trump, who started the CNN Town Hall with the first of many lies, that 2020 was a “rigged election.”

If that’s his barometer of truth, then he must really feel he has

Anti-Recidivism Coalition; Billie Mizell, founder of Acting with Compassion and Truth; Jonathan Moscone, executive director of the California Arts Council; Mimi Silbert, president of Delancey Street; James Michael Myatt, retired U.S. Marine Corps Major General; Alison Pachynski, chief medical executive at San Quentin State Prison; Chris Redlitz, executive director of The Last Mile; Michael Romano, director of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford University; Jesse Vasquez, executive director of the Pollen Initiative.

Gov. Newsom Honors Peace Officers

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke at the California Peace Officers Memorial ceremony held on the grounds of the California State Capitol.

Officers from around the state showed up at the solemn ceremony to pay tribute to their colleagues who died in the line of duty.

“It requires a certain kind of character, a certain kind of bravery to be a peace officer,” Newsom said at the ceremony. “There is no California without courageous Californians determined to serve and protect.”

California Commission on Aging Wants More Representation

Last week, the California Commission on Aging met in Los

You mean in D.C.’s Chinatown, home of the big sports arena where all of metro Washington goes to see major athletic and pop cultural events? You mean in the mostly gentrified D.C. Chinatown of today, where English is more commonly spoken than Mandarin or Cantonese?

Still, the rowdy live audience, which fed off Trump’s lies, clapped loudly at every Chinatown reference.

Just as they clapped when Trump said he would pardon some of the January 6 insurrectionists.

Just as they clapped when he insulted E. Jean Carroll, the woman who just this week won a $5 million judgment against Trump, who was found by a jury liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

To hear the crowd’s applause is exactly why “boxes in Chinatown” will become a Trump thing. It lets him connect the president to China in an emotional way that brings out a divisive politician’s secret sauce—American xenophobia.

It’s one of the few things in all of politics that actually trickles down.

The negative feelings toward Biden’s boxes in Chinatown transfers to everyone’s negative feelings toward people in Chinatown.

And not just Chinese people, or people of Chinese descent, but all Asian Americans, everywhere.

We saw what happens when Trump scapegoated us with “Kung Flu” and “China Virus” slurs.

An attack on one of us is an attack on all, no matter if you’re Filipino, or Vietnamese, or Korean.

We’re all Chinese to the perps.

And now they’re egged on by Donald Trump and his modern day “Yellow Peril.”

Biden’s boxes in Chinatown.

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist and commentator. His talk show is on WWW.AMOK. COM

Angeles.

The group advocates for aging adults and advises Gov. Newsom and the Legislature on issues facing aging Californians.

During the meeting, they discussed legislation it is sponsoring, including Assembly Bill (AB) 820, a bill that would “increase the representation of older adults on seven state boards, commissions, and advisory committees.”

AB 820 has been referred from the California Assembly to the State Senate, where it is being reviewed by the Committee on Rules.

California Is Getting Even More Democratic, Report Says

In a report titled, “The Dynamics of Party Registration in California,” the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) is reporting that the number of Democrats continue to increase in the Golden State.

According to the report, “between the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections, the registered population grew about 20% -- roughly twice as fast as the voting-eligible population” in California.

Of that number, 4.2 million new Democrats registered, 3.5 million signed up as some other party or ‘no party preference’ and 1.8 million new registrants were Republican.