Progressive Councilmembers invoke Critical Race Theory in harsh denunciation of colleague

Insults flew at the 6/31/20 San Jose City Council meeting, as progressive councilmembers lit into Councilmember Khamis regarding his comments around his "aye" vote on a Black Lives Matter resolution (which the complaining councilmembers also supported), and his comments on trying to achieve a more equitable society. An edited transcript follows. Timestamps are from a video of the meeting, which is available on the county YouTube Channel.

Afternoon Session

4:06:00 - The council was having a discussion regarding item 2.27 on the consent calendar, which is a “Resolution Proclaiming Black Lives Matter.”

Khamis: “I just wanted to make sure I chime in on my approval of this as well.

“I could tell you that I’m a refugee and I’m an immigrant. And I’m one of the only people here I think that has faced down some serious racism in San Jose.”

Acknowledging his own work in civil rights, Khamis went on to state:

“Many of us haven’t been doing this work for one day or two days and some of us have spent our entire lives working on civil rights.”

4:11:33 - Councilmember Carrasco was taking her turn to acknowledge the resolution previously discussed above. After doing so, she moved on to addressing Khamis, when she stated:

“Thank you councilmember Khamis, I know that you had a very difficult time. I know that you came here, and you faced some challenges due to political reasons, and I’m grateful that this country was able to open its arms and be able to offer you refuge and opportunities. . . I think sometimes the revolt that you see against you are because of your tone deafness when you make your remarks. And maybe if you just left the votes alone, you’d have more fans. . . Please don’t compare yourself to the plight of so many others that are still struggling that no matter how hard they work, and how much effort they put into the odds are so stacked against them that they can’t seem to climb out of the very difficult situations that they happen to find themselves in, and that’s why we’re here trying to level the playing field. Trying to really offer them opportunities that maybe you had and they don’t. You often cited opportunities that you were able to take advantage of and these are opportunities that are no longer available to many of our residents. No longer available to many of the folks that we’re fighting for. . . So that they can also have the great American dream that you really experience and get to pass on to your own children.” 

4:19:45 - Councilmember Peralez also addressed Khamis:

“I just wanted to respond to councilmember Khamis, and respectfully remind you that you are the only one on the council that actually wanted to remove the word 'race' from the new Office of Racial Equity. So I think those are some of the actions we need to look at when we are talking about making statements like this and then backing them up with those actions.” 

4:20:27 - Khamis responded to his colleagues: 

“I appreciate the commentary here, but I really am kind of insulted about the underlining statement here. My intention of removing the word 'race' is because race has been used as a way to divide people for centuries. People divided people by race because they wanted to show certain skin colors were inferior to others. I don’t stand for the word race, because it has a negative connotation to many people.” 

4:22:20 - Arenas continued:

“I just couldn’t not speak about this and I just want to say to the folks who are still listening, who this movement is so important to, that councilmember Khamis is just one out of all of us who feels this way. And I’ve got to tell you councilmember I think you need to do some more research in terms of racism in this country, and that when you erase my color, you erase me. When you say you don’t see color because you’re colorblind and because there’s no racism in you, then you’re erasing who I am, and you’re erasing the people who are black and have had such a horrific experience in this country. . . Your ancestors weren’t brought in as slaves. You had the opportunity to rise and I think from all of us probably the only millionaire here on council. And if your skin was black, your experience would not be the same. The fact that you can’t accept that and you can’t accept that race is part of this is just indicative that we need a continued conversation about this. And I really hope the folks that are hearing this today, that is not reflective of everyone else. And we understand that people of color have different experiences. I myself, am a woman, and I, in this council, in these meetings, have experienced a lot of sexism, and these are all people who are educated and are interacting with me. So it doesn’t stop just because you’ve reached a certain point. And to diminish the suffering and struggle of the black community is absolutely offensive to me. And so I want to apologize on your behalf to the community for that statement.”

4:24:43 - Esparza spoke on the same topic:

“I’m not going to apologize for councilmember Khamis’ words, I’ll leave that up to him. I also felt compelled to speak because it was so offensive and we’re about to take a vote on a resolution to change and eliminate systemic racism. How do you do that without talking about race? How do you do that without acknowledging that racism exists? And that we have a responsibility as the leaders of the city to address it. I’m a little blown away and I think it just highlights the need for us as a city council to continue to talk about this and to shine the light about it and not hide.”

4:25:40 - Carrasco also addressed the issue:

“Well how unfortunate, I thought the argument about being colorblind, and ‘I don’t see color or race’ was pase of all of 2000. I didn’t know we were still using that argument councilmember Khamis. And I’m very saddened that you’re talking about that, but to councilmember Arenas’ point; the fact that you use that as an excuse not to use race just is still yet another reason why we have to address it head on and why we have to really address the issues of privilege. And it also speaks to the underlying issues when we’ve gone toe to toe and head to head on some of these policy issues. . . Where some of us have been banging our heads trying to understand why we can’t get some of these issues across the table, or seem to not really get the message across. . . There’s an underlying current of privilege. We need to have this conversation, we need to address it, it’s going to be very painful. I think we all have to do some self reflection. I just hope that everybody is going to be open and available to do some self reflection. . . We have to acknowledge first that we have systemic, institutionalized racism, that we have not addressed in our city council.”

“We should acknowledge that some councilmembers have deep rooted knowledge on these issues and that they should be acknowledged for their knowledge base.” 

Evening Session

5:04:20 - During a conversation wrapping up the potential ballot measure to amend the city charter councilmember Arenas, who appeared frustrated with her colleagues, particularly the mayor, stated"

“This is the charade, this is the setup. You’ve set it up so that the rest of the voices cannot be heard. And that is exactly symbolic of what’s going to happen with this proposal, is that you’re setting this up so that the people of color in San Jose and their voices and those who are underrepresented, and those who like me, are not in your favor. It is not lost on me that I am not somebody you would call on first, or that you rely on, or that you collaborate with. But yet I am a person that you oppose politically and you bring it into the dais. And so, for somebody like me what chances do I have in representing my community in the way that they deserve to be represented? So, I heard loud and clear from all of our residents that this is not what they want, but you’re willing to make it happen anyways. And this is absolutely symbolic of the leadership that we will expect from you and the rest of my colleagues who I am really ashamed of right now for their lack of concern to representation, and diminishing their own role. But I think they’re already assured that their role will not be diminished because they will vote favorably in the way that you want. . . He knows why we wrote the charter the way that we wrote it. So that we can avoid corruption. And this is exactly what we’re trying to avoid. We’re trying to avoid having one office have too much control. So this is indicative of what is going to happen next. The mayor will have so much control that none of the voices of all of the Latinos on this council will be heard because that’s been traditionally what has happened.”

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