Is Civility Dying in Seattle?

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde here as always with Erica C Barnett of Publicola. Hello, Erica. Hello. And political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. Hi, Sandeep. Hello. Today we're talking about Tanya Wu, appointed city council member Tanya Wu, the

[00:00:28] headline in Publicola, uh, recent headline, Councilmember Tanya Wu reported graffiti to FBI as hate crime. But first I wanted to just ask did either of you see this story about the swimmer who apparently drowned in Shilshol recently? No. No. Don't know anything about it.

[00:00:48] The weird thing about this story was, you know, I think people drown, I don't know how often, but unfortunately drown all the time. But the weird thing about the story is that

[00:00:59] one of the eyewitnesses on shore, and this is according to a Como story, so take it as you will, but according to one of the eyewitnesses on shore, the person appeared to be sort of struggling and it appeared that they were being pulled down into the water. And

[00:01:15] then they disappeared. And then police or fire rescue is reported saying that the body hadn't been found. So I haven't verified that or checked to see any updates on that story. But the weird part is like the eyewitness claiming that this person was like pulled down

[00:01:32] into the water. The only reason I say weird is I then googled like sea lion attacks because there are like tons of sea lions in Shilshol and it's pretty infrequent, but there are people that get pulled under the water by sea lions like in California. There

[00:01:48] was one incident in San Francisco like a few years ago. And I guess in Mexico, this has happened. And I'm just saying like that would be freaky if this was like a sea lion because they're huge. These things are like up to a thousand pounds.

[00:02:02] Yeah, I don't want to speculate on I mean this person lost their life. It's very sad story either way. So I don't know if it's I totally hear that weird but no, no,

[00:02:13] I totally hear that. So I contacted Noah about it. And this person basically told me like we don't know nearly enough about this to actually suggest that it could have been a sea lion attack.

[00:02:23] There's no information. There are no images. There's no nothing and I'm not I'm not bringing it up in sort of a glib funny way. I've just always been kind of freaked out by the size

[00:02:33] of those sea lions and seeing there's more and more people. Have you seen this like trend towards like cold water swimming? There's like tons of people out there in the water now

[00:02:41] at Golden Gardens. No, but I mean, yeah, no. But I but I think I think swimming in cold water, I mean is you know, is itself enough of an explanation. It's very, you know, dangerous

[00:02:53] if you're not if you're not prepared. I mean, I just I just read a whole book about the deaths at Yellowstone. They sell these, you know, attention grabbing books and national parks. And so I bought this book and yeah, man, you can drown in just a very small

[00:03:06] amount of water and it becomes extremely difficult to swim. And so it is it is a really dangerous thing to be doing. You know, if you don't know what you're doing and you don't have people there who can rescue you. Right. And it's cold. You just

[00:03:17] cramp up apparently in cold water and and you and you're not able to swim. I would never go in that freezing cold water myself. I don't know if they were wearing like a wetsuit or whatever. But but yeah, it's been so hot though. Like I just

[00:03:30] went in into the Puget Sound yesterday and the place that I went, I mean, it felt like a lake like a cold lake. But it was it wasn't like painful to go in. Anyway, yes, it is incredibly sad. And if I implied that it wasn't, I'm sorry

[00:03:44] about that. No, no, no, you didn't. I just I just want I just it feels like the cliche too soon. I mean, it's too soon. Yeah, probably. Yeah. All right. So let's get to this question about hateful graffiti against city council

[00:04:01] member Tanya Wu according to the Northwest Asian Weekly's op ed, which was a different take than the one that you had, right, Erica? Well, the Northwest Asian Weekly's op ed as it turns out, according to a reporting by Ashley

[00:04:15] Nervivig and the stranger was submitted by Tanya Wu. So she, you know, it was under another person's name. And I don't know who actually wrote it, but it was submitted by her to Northwest Asian Weekly. So they described it in

[00:04:27] this op ed that they said there was hateful graffiti that was anti Asian and the only examples that they posted and the only examples that anyone has been able to find of any kind of graffiti relating to Tanya Wu recently

[00:04:40] was some graffiti on a parking meter, which was featured in the story. There's a photo and it said fuck Tanya Wu, get her out. And then there was also very small sort of marker like paint marker graffiti on the side of

[00:04:54] actually the hotel that Tanya Wu and her family own an apartment building called the Louisa Hotel. And it said Tanya Wu hates black people. And then there was also some the stranger found some indice, cipher bull graffiti that appeared to say something like Tanya Wu is racist.

[00:05:11] Yeah. So that was that was the graffiti it was then described in a council meeting a couple days later as misogynistic, xenophobic, racist and you know, a bunch of other words by other council members.

[00:05:24] And, you know, she as I reported, she reported it to the FBI as a hate crime. And I talked to the FBI and they said, you know, we can't comment on any specific case, but the criteria that we use for hate crime, you know,

[00:05:36] are these criteria. And, you know, I think what they were perhaps suggesting is that you can say fuck a council member or elected official and it's that doesn't make it a hate crime. So, what do you think?

[00:05:47] Well, so I think I'm going to contest some facts here or at least one fact. So my understanding from some conversations I've had with people on the second floor is that the graffiti happened.

[00:05:59] There were people in the community and the ID, the CID that were upset about it and we're talking with Tanya Wu about it did suggest to her that she should not stay silent about it.

[00:06:09] She did reach out to the North station weekly, agreed to run an op ed about it. And apparently she emailed SBD and the FBI just to say, hey, this happened. I think her folks are saying she didn't report

[00:06:23] this as a hate crime to them but said, hey, this happened of concern to me and folks in the community. And, you know, what should I do about it? And then the FBI emailed her back and basically said, you know, first amendment, whatever. Right.

[00:06:35] Yeah, I don't I'm not talking to your pals on the seventh floor. I was talking to the FBI myself. So this was in my reporting that you're disputing. But, you know, this is this is what the FBI told me.

[00:06:44] Well, people in Tanya Wu's can't say something slightly different. She did email the FBI but not to report a hate crime. OK. Well, I don't know what else you email the FBI casually for. So if you're saying that she was just casually like saying, hey, FBI,

[00:07:00] he was casually anything. You're you're you're again trying to like, you know, twist. I'm saying that you reported that she reported it as a hate crime. What her folks are saying to me is that she knows what a hate crime is.

[00:07:11] She knows that this was this was not a hate crime. Nonetheless, there was some concern about anyway, we can let us not all quibble over the details of it. Yeah. I mean, I will just say that everybody in this meeting

[00:07:24] the other day was describing it repeatedly as hate speech. Can I can I just interview? Can I just ask a question like for the casual listener? So fuck you, Tanya Wu fuck Tanya Wu get her out. What's the other one? Tanya Wu hates black people.

[00:07:38] Tanya Wu is a racist. Tanya was a racist. And then there's something about in the North Asian weekly calling it hateful, which seems different than a hate crime. But Eric, it sounds like some people, you know, were calling it hate speech.

[00:07:51] And if so, they were confused by that. Explain that then. Like what's the difference between hate speech and what this is, whatever it is? Well, I mean, I will say to you, Sundi was saying that nobody called it a hate crime.

[00:08:03] I mean, there was there was a whole meeting where this wasn't on the agenda, but there was a long discussion and, you know, several council members referred to it repeatedly as hate speech, including Tanya Wu herself.

[00:08:14] And so I think that it is being asserted that this is hate speech and not just, you know, being mean to somebody. So let's just be clear that that is what is being asserted. And so yeah.

[00:08:26] And but let's also be clear that there's a difference between hate speech and a hate crime. Right? I mean, I so if you if you if you claim hate speech and then you call the FBI, I don't think it is a wild leave.

[00:08:40] But you keep bringing this up, Sundi, when you keep saying, well, she didn't she didn't ever because I will. I will take the position on this. You have that this is this is pretty toxic. I think it's fair to call this hate speech, right?

[00:08:53] That that that was directed at her whether, Sundi, if you've said fuck you to me on this podcast, is that hate speech when you're like, fuck Erica, but context here matters, right? And and and this is something, you know, by the way,

[00:09:07] I have gone, what is it, two and a half years now without once doing the Erica, you ignorant slot line, which I've been wanting to do since day one, but that probably dates me from the Saturday Live era. Oh, yeah.

[00:09:21] Well, you still have actually from the 70s now you've got to do it, but not even in a great way. Anyway, anyway, I'm getting excited. Look, why is it hate speech, Sundi, when when somebody says hateful? I think hate speech. I am going to say hate speech.

[00:09:41] Sandip is saying it's hate speech. Tonya Woosa, it's hate speech. Everybody saying it's speech. Why is it hate speech? I think it's it's fascinating that there are two completely different narratives that have developed about about this incident that don't seem to intersect at any point.

[00:09:56] I've talked to a number of women of color in particular, I'll name one who was very exercised about this whole incident, Deborah Juarez, who contacted me over the weekend about it, former council president right now no longer in the council, who see a pattern of nasty attack speech,

[00:10:18] hateful stuff directed particularly at women of color, elected officials who themselves I think Deborah really feels like she was subjected to some really awful stuff that was sent at her that they feel is in particular or is what may happen to everyone

[00:10:36] is is more common and more vehement against women of color, sometimes on both sides of the political divide in the city and that there's a double standard among a certain set of very ideological progressives who are all about,

[00:10:53] you know, honoring people of color when they when they experience incidents that feel threatening or hateful to them. But all of a sudden, if you're one of these people that doesn't ideologically align with those people, there's suddenly a completely different standard and this

[00:11:08] gala gets waved off or even justified or something. Well, Sandeep, I mean, you're also calling for a willful naivete. I mean, it is also true. I will point out, I mean, of course, women get the worst of it.

[00:11:19] And of course, women of color get the worst of everything. You know, I'm glad to hear you standing up for identity politics, finally. But the fact is like this stuff happened before Deborah Juarez. And by the way, Deborah Juarez,

[00:11:31] I believe this is why she stopped speaking to me and started trashing me behind my back, because I reported on this on these incidents during the protests against police violence in 2020 when people were being really nasty to all the city council members who they felt were insufficiently progressive.

[00:11:49] And when I say people, I mean, a very small segment of protesters who were going out and doing stuff that would like going up to their doors and leaving notes on their doors, things like that. And this happened to all the council members, including Alex Peterson,

[00:12:00] who also complained about it. He's a white guy. And, you know, and I reported on it and she thought that I was giving insufficient shrift to some of her complaints. Years before that, Sunday, a group with which I believe

[00:12:12] I can't remember if you were affiliated with people for Seattle or not, but they were running a lot of nasty ads about city council members, including Lisa Hurball. And what one thing that happened, subsequent to that, you know, the attacks on on her and on others

[00:12:28] on the council who were progressive got so escalated that there was graffiti, like permanent graffiti, not chop on the ground on her route to work on pillars of the West Seattle Bridge, you know, saying that she's killing people.

[00:12:41] And and then during chop, somebody threw a brick through her window again. Not, you know, I mean, I don't know if it was somebody from the left, but but somebody who was angry enough for her to throw a brick through her window.

[00:12:53] I think those are clear signs of intimidation. And I think that we have to just sort of look at, you know, is a two inch high, marked message saying Tanya Wu hates black people is accusing Tanya Wu of racism hate speech.

[00:13:07] Because, you know, I mean, that gets weaponized to being called a racist is worse than being racist. And I'm not saying Tanya was racist by any stretch. I'm not saying it's correct or right. But does it seem to be happening in the CID on the building,

[00:13:19] you know, that is owned by her and her family? It seems to be happening directed towards her and not any of the other eight council members. Now, she is up for reelection this year. So is that what's driving it? Or is this something specifically target her?

[00:13:33] I mean, I think, like I said, I think there's two different narratives that have emerged here about it. And I'm hearing a lot of people like if you if you saw the tweets from or the comments from like Joy Hollingsworth, for instance, about this.

[00:13:44] Or for that matter, there was a tweet by Tommy Wu's opponent in this race, Alexis Ringg. And Alexis called this out of bounds and hate speech and that there's no place for this kind of kind of behavior directed in our politics, even when we vehemently disagree about stuff.

[00:14:02] Right. And and to her. Can I ask you a question in general? Yeah, go ahead. Do you think that that putting graffiti on walls, you know, including the graffiti that was against Lisa Herbold back in, I believe, 2019, do you believe that that like is something

[00:14:19] that we in Seattle shouldn't tolerate as a form of protest and that like resources should be dedicated to to cracking down on people who say, who, you know, scrawl fuck, you know, X, Y, Z council member on walls?

[00:14:31] No. And I think you're asking a good question here because no, I do think we have to tolerate it, right? I mean, I am a First Amendment person and I do think we need to tolerate that. But we can also call it out as out of bounds, right?

[00:14:44] So what I say we need to tolerate it means I don't think it's prosecutable, right? I don't think these are sort of actionable things that there's some legal remedy right for. On the other hand, I don't think we should be normalizing this kind of behavior or celebrating it.

[00:15:00] And that's what I see too often happening, particularly on certain in Seattle, I think it's more common among the very, very polarized left just because we don't have much of a right here in other parts of the country.

[00:15:12] I think you have these kind of very polarized, scary, right wing people who do the same conduct the same sort of behaviors. And no, Lisa Herbal should not be subjected to the toxicity and threats that she was subjected to, presumably by people that disagreed with her politically.

[00:15:28] Like, look, there was just an incident with the protests at the University of Washington right over the Gaza stuff. And the president of the UW denounced some of the graffiti that was spray painted by protesters as anti-seminant, right?

[00:15:43] And the stranger wrote a whole piece about this, arguing against the fact that none of what was spray painted was arguably anti-semitic. And I think arguably they're right, it's not anti-semitic. It's still way out of bounds when you're talking about,

[00:15:58] you know, mug your local Zionist or, you know, kill colonizers and stuff like that. That's a great example. So that's calling for mugging and killing people. Do you think that fuck Tanewu is on the level of that? And I don't mean to keep bringing Tanewu into it.

[00:16:12] Like, let's say fuck Erica Barnett. Like she sucks. It also says get her out. Yeah. And that's where I talked to somebody in the Asian community today who said, that's the in particular the thing that in the community really trouble people because

[00:16:26] I've talked to actually people in the Asian community too, Sandy. And they do not agree. I mean, it's not a monolith. Anyway, sure, they're not a monolith. The ones I talked to found that particularly troubling because I think

[00:16:37] that maybe it's ambiguous, maybe it means get her out of office. Can we take it back then to just this question? Like, I still don't understand either of your answers because Eric, I asked you, but now I'm putting it to Sandy.

[00:16:51] I don't understand how fuck Tanewu get her out or Tanewu hates black people is hate speech or hateful speech. I haven't heard a definition of hate speech. I was asking my nephew who recently graduated from college about this. He's like, that's not hate speech, man.

[00:17:08] That's ambiguous. He said, which is what you, which is the word both of you used. And I was like, that seems kind of yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I did. But that seems kind of right to me. In other words, it might mean get her out of office.

[00:17:21] It might mean something sort of xenophobic and intimidating. But because it's ambiguous, is it really hate speech? So so what's your working definition of hate speech here where you're calling it hate speech? I don't I don't understand that. I think it's ambiguous, right? My position is ambiguous.

[00:17:37] I have a First Amendment position on this stuff that we do have to tolerate this stuff, whether we like it or not. Whether you have that position or not. It's not a hate crime. So it doesn't matter from a lot of people in communities of color

[00:17:49] in Seattle is what they're pointing out is when stuff like this happens, the definition for a certain set of progressives suddenly changes. Right? There there that there's a certain definition of this that exists when speech like this is directed

[00:18:05] at at people that progressives agree with and then the people of color and then those people say, hey, I feel threatened. Do we have any do we have any examples of that like specific examples of that

[00:18:17] where the left was kind of freaking out about speech that was similarly ambiguous? I'm just trying to go in, you know, I have to go and yeah and look for it. But can I respond to the get her out thing?

[00:18:31] I mean, we're just talking about Lisa Herbold and what was directed at her. I mean, I think that would probably probably qualify. I don't it wasn't it was a brick. Well, if there's a brick. Can I can I get in here for oh, the brick?

[00:18:42] Yes, but it wasn't hate speech to say her policies kill. So and I and I and I think, you know, the get her out thing. So just a fuck ton you will get her out. It was on a parking meter that has since been painted over.

[00:18:54] And, you know, and I would say I would read that about any elected official as as get her out of there. She said during this meeting that I was talking about the other day that the people in the Chinatown International District don't understand politics.

[00:19:08] It's her words and that they would read that as like to port her. And Sunday, I think that's what I what I hear you arguing. I definitely think some people in the community argue that that's how it was perceived by by some folks in the city.

[00:19:24] That's where they hang their argument that this for crossed a line into. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. But they also say all the other stuff is xenophobic and hate speech to they're not just saying, I mean, I've not heard anybody claim

[00:19:35] that like this was the this parking meter was the only place where they think that the stuff is hate speech. They're saying it's all hate speech. And, you know, and I disagree. I mean, I think hate speech is speech that targets, you know, a person

[00:19:49] because of their identity. I think saying Tanya Wu hates black people while that is incendiary is not hate speech. It's just it's just saying I don't like Tanya Wu and people are allowed to express that stuff even if we disagree with it.

[00:20:03] And, you know, and I also think I don't know. I mean, I think saying like an entire community doesn't understand politics, you know, after sort of running a campaign saying that they're all behind you is just trying to have it a little bit both ways.

[00:20:16] So can I secondly ask about the second sentence here? Tanya Wu hates black people. Eric, I can't remember if it was in this story or The Stranger or wherever else I read this, but somebody was basically saying that that encourages kind of stereotypical racial animosity between

[00:20:33] the Asian community and black people. I mean, it is like in what way does Tanya Wu specifically hate black people? I don't know what the theory of the case here. I mean, that's the thing we're looking at.

[00:20:44] No, no, what I'm wondering is, is it in what way does that statement either not cross or cross the line? Is it the kind of thing? I guess back to Son of the Epes point where if the shoe were on the other foot,

[00:20:55] you know, if somebody said Tammy Morales hates black people, would we see people leaping to Tammy's defense and saying, you know, that really crosses a line here in terms of graffiti or not? Kind of what do you think? I don't think so. I don't think so.

[00:21:07] And I'll be like, there's no problem here. I've never seen the left and I'm sure it's happened and people will find counter examples, but the left is not generally engaged in sensorious conduct when people express themselves. They don't say this person must be silenced.

[00:21:21] They say this person must be voted out of office. They don't like it's it's not when we're talking about graffiti in particular, first of all, it generally is not the right that's doing protests and graffiti, let's be honest. Like they don't do that.

[00:21:34] They don't know how to do it. You know, they spend their money instead. But to go back, David, you did mention a stereotype that I want to address, which is the sort of historical, you know, stereotypical animosity between the Asian American community and the black community.

[00:21:48] And I think that there is no way to look at a piece of graffiti and know who wrote it and who wrote it. And the context of that is is really important in this case.

[00:21:58] I think does a member of a community have a right to say that they feel silenced or unheard or hated by a city council member? Absolutely, they do. But, you know, if it's somebody who's, you know, trying to stir up animosity

[00:22:12] who's not a part of the Asian community or the black community saying it, then that's a different thing. But the fact is we don't know. So all we have is this graffiti to look at and say, does this cross a line or does it not cross a line?

[00:22:24] And I would say it doesn't cross a line, certainly into a hate crime, but it also is the kind of thing that, you know, it happens. People clear the graffiti away. It goes away and it doesn't, you know, necessarily need to turn into,

[00:22:38] you know, a multi day, multi week news cycle. We can we can condemn people for being assholes to city council members if we want. But I just I think we should condemn that. Yeah. I think that I think that some of the rhetoric that was being used

[00:22:52] not just by actually primarily by other council members saying that this was misogynistic and xenophobic without knowing anything more about it than what they've read in Tonya Wu's editorial. You know, I think that was going to our look, I would say just

[00:23:07] in the in this specific Tonya Wu incident, the graffiti itself is sort of one thing, but Tonya Wu is also sad. And I think we should note that here is that she was then subsequent to the graffiti in the neighborhood approached

[00:23:21] in a threatening way by a couple of people who kind of cited I think also said, fuck you, Tonya Wu, right? Sighting kind of. I don't know that that's I mean, I am not all she said the other day.

[00:23:34] It was a very vague story that a guy was swinging a stick and hitting it against a wall and he said something similar to what the graffiti said. But I didn't hear her say that the person, you know, recognized her and then said her name.

[00:23:48] I spoke to I spoke to someone who told me that that that they knew it was Tonya Wu and they said fucking Tonya Wu. So anyway, that that that that my. I mean, I don't know who your secret sources always are.

[00:24:00] City Hall, you always cite you always cite secret sources. And so I can't. You have lots of secret sources to Erica. We all have secret sources. Yeah, I know. But every time you come on here, you're like, I've talked to all these

[00:24:09] women of color. I've talked to all these people at City Hall. And like, I just I just don't know who they are. So I can't evaluate anything you say, except with a bit of a grain of salt.

[00:24:19] So you think that you think she was you because that would be a hate crime, Sunday. So it sounds like you're saying you do believe she was a victim of a hate crime. Maybe. I mean, I mean, according to my understanding of Tonya Wu's account

[00:24:30] of this, it wasn't just a graffiti, but there was a sort of follow on incident that made her feel very, very threatening and unsafe. Right. So it's in that context, I think that you can understand someone emailing SPD and said, Hey, I just had this.

[00:24:44] This happened to me. What should I do about it or DFBI or whatever? Right. And I think when the levels of our political discourse get so ugly and toxic that crazy people on the fringes sometimes act on that.

[00:25:00] And whether it's throwing a brick through, you know, Lisa Herbal's window or, you know, shouting things on the street at Tonya Wu and stuff like that, that becomes a real problem for for for us as a as a society and a polity. Right.

[00:25:16] I mean, we shouldn't subject people who step up to serve in public office to, you know, actual abuse and threats and stuff like that. I mean, that that that becomes really destructive as a reporter as a reporter.

[00:25:31] Like, you know, I'm just going to put my reporter hat on for a second. If somebody described an incident to me, I would, yeah, of any kind. Like if somebody says, you know, somebody broke into my car and it was this guy

[00:25:43] and I need you to look into this guy, I would not just report it as true. I would go and like get the police report and talk to people. And, you know, I would do I would do reporting. Of course.

[00:25:53] And what you are suggesting is that, you know, without reporting, we call this, you know, essentially a hate crime. And I and I'm just saying that I would not do that without doing the work of reporting and finding out more than what I have heard,

[00:26:05] which was which was a vague story of relayed in a council briefing that that came after and was not included in the Northwest. I was told a little more. I was told a little more detail on the story to the FBI.

[00:26:17] When I spoke to them, they did not describe that incident. They said that the incident was related was as I described it to them, which was about the graffiti. So I'm not sure they I'm not sure that Tanya did file a police report.

[00:26:28] Well, she didn't file a police report, actually. But I'm not sure that she told the FBI or SPD about this this instrument. They these these two instances that she described. And I'm just saying that I would do a little more reporting before I just said this happened.

[00:26:42] I'm just saying what what what what I was in the way that you're describing. When I was told I I had it, I was reporting from an anonymous source who gave me some information about now. I don't know whether the, you know, the person or people that were

[00:26:58] that, you know, allegedly threatened Tanya Wu had anything to do with actually writing the graffiti or not. I'm not trying to make some kind of direct linkage between the two. But it does seem like they would that they repeated some of the same language,

[00:27:09] right? Or some of the same sentiment. Now, maybe fuck you, Tanya Wu is just not, you know, not the most, you know, well, it's not a very articulate statement. Like if there was somebody who already knows who Tanya Wu is,

[00:27:21] knows what she looks like, I don't think it's, you know, I don't think that it probably it's probably the kind of thing that a person who would say that would have said anyway, you know, and we do prosecute threats and we do prosecute people for,

[00:27:32] you know, trying to attack people. Yeah, I mean, look, a lot of this stuff, we get into sort of gray air. That's right. Look, let me give you another example. Erica, would you say the mailer that Lorena Gonzalez's campaign

[00:27:47] at the end of that campaign that she sent out about Bruce Harrell that essentially sort of, you know, it wasn't just a mailer. I think it was an ad too that said basically that Bruce Harrell is kind of soft on the sexual assault of pretty white girls, right?

[00:28:00] Yeah, I thought that played on racial stereotypes and, you know, and really like was, I mean, I thought it was really troubling. I did not like that ad. I don't think however that like, I mean, I don't know what action you're calling for to happen.

[00:28:12] I mean, if any with graffiti like this, you're saying, oh, we can't tolerate this. It can't be, you know, we live in this toxic society. What do you want done? Yeah, yeah. Let me I think that's a great question.

[00:28:23] And I think you're getting to the kind of heart of the matter about this because I don't think that there's a criminal action here, right? Or a law enforcement action here. But I do think I see a lot of people hand waving away

[00:28:39] the the the toxicity in these sorts of incidents or even celebrating them because they ideologically disagree with the subject of that stuff, right? And so when I look at the back and forth on, you know, I know you say I'm obsessed with Twitter, but I mean,

[00:28:57] there's a lot of conversation about this there. And I'm seeing a lot of people just kind of saying there's nothing wrong with, you know, shouting abuse at elected officials, right? Or well, I'm not on Twitter telling them that you hate them.

[00:29:12] Well, a lot of other people are right. And and I'm saying that is the problematic response to me. When I say when people normalize or celebrate that kind of behavior, I think it's a real fucking problem. No, well, maybe we can put in the show notes.

[00:29:27] I want to see some examples of people celebrating it and saying here's one. Here's one. I'm looking at Reddit. This is the post under your article. Now, I find this kind of funny because they're reading of the post is not that it's emophobic.

[00:29:40] I don't think but it says fuck Tony, we'll get her out. That's a solid campaign slogan if I've ever heard one. I thought that was kind of funny. But I think clearly that person's reading it as get her out of office.

[00:29:51] You know, I'm trying to see any here that are celebrating it. To finish my question, when that when that Lorena Gonzalez mailer happened, right? What happened like hundreds of people in the black community

[00:30:02] kind of signed a public letter denouncing that as a as a as a racist attack. There were hundreds of people that were in the process of signing a letter from the Asian community, condemning that when when Lorena Gonzalez before that Asian letter came out,

[00:30:17] the Lorena Gonzalez and her campaign pulled the pull the ad. And essentially, you know, I mean, I remember tweeting at the time that the mayor's race ended a week early. Once you once you pull the ad, it's a tacit admission of guilt, right?

[00:30:29] And so well, I mean, pulling the ad was absolutely the right thing to do. Well, they shouldn't have done in the fucking first place. It's admission that you fucked up. But like, but yeah.

[00:30:40] So so what is so what is your so you think my point being is that's the right response to that. So you think there should be hundreds of people signing letters? I think we don't want to tolerate this kind of whatever term you want to use,

[00:30:53] ugly, toxic, you know, every time council members are criticized with cuss words. I mean, where like at what point do you like do your does your pearl clutching and I mean because it does seem like the culture of the council really really changed.

[00:31:08] I think the big turning point was so want and her so I'm getting elected and then she would kind of fill the room with her red shirts who got very, very used to like yelling. Long gone. So but the culture isn't right.

[00:31:20] Like, you know, Trump may or may not get elected, but Maga is here to stay, right on the right, right? And I think we have a toxic streak here in our Seattle political culture too that is not gone anywhere. Didn't go with that, though, Sunday.

[00:31:35] How far how far do you go with that? Like, what is the phrase I'm always hearing? Erica, maybe you're the one using it sometimes about respectability politics. And I do think like, you know, some of the stuff we know clearly crosses the line.

[00:31:47] But yeah, Erica's raising the question. What if it just said fuck Tonya Wu? Do you or what do you think that should be expressing frustration with a policy through, you know, through these words specifically that she hates black people. Yeah, like are you, you know, I guess we're

[00:32:07] we're trying to be specific and vague at the same time in that question. But like, but like, but just let's say it was just fuck Tonya Wu. Erica asked you that question earlier, like, you know, yeah, yeah, you shouldn't say it. It's impolite. It's it's in civil.

[00:32:20] But how exercise should we be getting about that? Look, it was just a one off and it was like one piece of graffiti saying fuck Tonya Wu and this was completely out of bounds and not part of a pattern in our in our political culture in Seattle.

[00:32:32] It would mean one thing if it's if it's actually just the latest expression of a kind of, you know, ongoing toxicity, then it means a lot more. Right. And I'm I'm making the latter argument here like so like fuck Donald Trump.

[00:32:44] Nobody should say fuck Donald Trump or whatever like that. You know, I mean, you're worried about that. I mean, again, bad words, Sandy, but I know you're against it. Yeah, yeah. It's a naughty, naughty word. I'm actually turning pink with embarrassment because you keep saying

[00:32:59] this dirty dirty word. Can I just also bring up one example? Yeah. Can I just bring up one example, too, that I brought up in my in my story about this back during chop? You know, Jenny Durkin said that they needed to shut down chop.

[00:33:16] And one of the one of the reasons that she cited, you know, actually Del reason at one of the points when she said they should shut it down was that there was homophobic graffiti everywhere. And it was it was hurting the LGBTQ community in Capitol Hill.

[00:33:28] Seattle is historically gay and lesbian queer neighborhood. And it turns out so I went down. I looked everywhere for this graffiti. I talked to business owners. All I could find was three pieces of graffiti. I think one said like homos for BLM, one said dykes for BLM.

[00:33:48] There was another one about dykes and there's another that used the the effort. It was people self describing and saying that they disagreed with Jenny Durkin. And she interpreted that. And I'm not saying this is exactly parallel, but I am saying

[00:34:01] that like the civility politics bullshit that you know, that you sometimes you choose selectively to engage in, Sundy, you know, can can also go way too far. And I think that's fair. Like look, look, if that's all that that was spray painted in chop.

[00:34:16] First of all, that's not the that's not the reason why chop should have been shut down, chop should have been shut down because it turned into a lawless fucking hellhole where kids were getting shot and killed. Right. The much better reason to shut fucking shut down chop.

[00:34:27] Then who I use that word. I use that effort, right? A lot better reason than then, you know, whatever graffiti got spray painted there. And if that's all it was, then I think, you know, yeah, Jenny pushed it too far.

[00:34:39] I will but I will counter that during that exact same period on that infamous march to Jenny Durkin's house. You know, if you look at the shit that got spray painted on this on the road and and driveway of her house,

[00:34:53] it's really freaking threatening and misogynistic and homophobic. Right. I mean, you know, a big spurting cock drawing point at her house and then somebody saying, you know, eat this dick Jenny, you know, and, you know, to a lesbian to a lesbian mayor.

[00:35:10] Right. I mean, I think that stuff is pretty bad. Like that is pretty bad. And I don't think that this is quite the same thing, Sonny. Right. Right. There are there are degrees here, right? And we do have to make judgment calls and there are gray areas.

[00:35:21] I totally agree with you on all of that. And I think we can push it too far into a realm of this sort of constant and civilian politics. What I'm arguing is that we've gone too far in the other direction

[00:35:31] where you have too many people sort of normal, normalizing normalizing on a building use of abusive speech and behavior. Yeah, I think you should go out and look at this graffiti, Sunday, and just see how I mean, it's in an alley.

[00:35:46] So first of all, you'd have to walk into the alley to see it. And then you kind of have to hunt for it because it's white on, you know, I'm sort of weathered red brick. Yeah. I mean, I guess somebody could like squint and read it.

[00:35:56] But it's I mean, I posted a picture and I upped the contrast on the picture to make it like as easy as possible to read. And it is pretty hard to read both in person and, you know, and even in the high contrast photo.

[00:36:06] So I don't know, man. Like I also I think that if we if we're going to get twisted up about every, you know, every time somebody says something mean about a local politician or really mean or shitty or says fuck them,

[00:36:21] you know, it's going to be all we're talking about. And I feel like we talk about civility enough in this fucking city. I mean, the city is obsessed with civility always has been. Graffiti telling politicians to fuck off has been around since I moved here

[00:36:36] twenty five year almost twenty five years ago. You know, I lived on Capitol Hill. There's plenty of messaging that's like rude and impolite. And you know, I just I don't think you're going to. I don't think it's new a new toxicity that's leading to graffiti.

[00:36:52] And I also don't think you're going to like civility your way out of it. Sunday. All right, let's leave it there. And by the way, fuck both of you. He's Sandeep Kashi. She's Erica C Barnett. I'm David Hyde. Our editor is Quinn Waller and you are listeners.

[00:37:04] I just can't say this enough. Thank you so much for donating on Patreon, whatever you can. People are chipping in whatever they can. It's Patreon slash Seattle nice. And thanks everybody so much for listening.