Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has come under fire for using an anti-Asian slur.
In a resurfaced podcast from April, Youngkin described Asians in Virginia as “yellow.”
“I so look forward to being governor and actually working hard to unleash the potential of all Virginians . . . so that all Virginians — Black Virginians, Brown Virginians, White Virginians, yellow Virginians — can all achieve their aspirations and their ambitions,” he said whilst talking about unity in Chris Arps’s Water Cooler Politics podcast.
“And this is what America is about. And this is what Virginia should be about.”
The Democratic Party of Virginia has since demanded that Youngkin should “apologize for using this slur.”
Vietnamese American State Del. Kathy Tran (D-Fairfax) tweeted that his wording was “offensive & dangerous.”
However, Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter called the criticism “hypocrisy and bad faith at their finest” after a video showed liberals including Whoopi Goldberg, Sen. Mazie Hirono also using the term.
“Glenn Youngkin will always seek to uplift and empower Virginians of every color,” Porter said. “None of these Democrats had a problem with this same language being used at their own Democrat National Convention last year, or being used by elected officials in their own party.”
Del. Mark Keam (D-Fairfax), the first Korean immigrant elected to Virginia’s legislature, nonetheless said use of the word demonstrated Youngkin’s disconnection from the community.
“It’s clear to me that Mr. Youngkin has spent very little time with people from our community, and based on his lack of understanding of the sensitivities, it’s also clear to me that he doesn’t have an interest in getting to know our community beyond using cheap slogans,” Keam said.
In other news, two Asian women had their purses violently snatched at a San Gabriel market.
