Asian American Leaders Condemn anti-DA ‘Racist,’ Communist-Style Poster

Lee Heidhues 3.11.2022

Vicious reactionaries whose campaign was funded by hard core right wingers who paid mercenaries nearly 1.5MM to gather signatures trying to oust District Attorney Chesa Boudin have sunk to a new low.

Never mind that some Recall people are trying to distance themselves from this blatant red-baiting anti-Asian hate literature. They are all of the same foul reactionary anti-democracy ilk.

The people who are trying to distance themselves from this awful racist literature are the same people who disrupted Chesa Boudin’s rally a week ago in Alamo Square Park.

The millionaire reactionaries who funded this anti-democratic attempt to oust the District Attorney will stoop to any depth to push their warped and perverse agenda in the run up to the June 7 election.

“Sadly, this comes as no surprise from a campaign that has made bullying and harassment key components of their strategy,” Julie Edwards. anti-DA recall spokeswoman said.

Excerpted from SF Standard – 3.11.2022

One of the two campaigns to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is being accused of using “racist” and “anti-Chinese” campaign materials to criticize the progressive prosecutor with communist-style propaganda.

Nonprofit and civil rights leaders joined multiple retired Chinese American elected officials Thursday in Chinatown to condemn a poster depicting Boudin in a Cold War-era propaganda image, with the DA gesturing in a manner similar to a Mao Zedong poster from the 1970s. The poster also includes images of homeless encampments, a person appearing to consume drugs and a figure slumped over with their pants down.

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DA Chesa Boudin with community leaders Norman Yee, Henry Der and Eric Mar – 3.5.2022

“The recall campaign has exploited the use of a Chinese historical jacket to deceive San Francisco voters,” said Henry Der, a former state deputy superintendent of public instruction and longtime head of the Chinatown-based civil rights organization Chinese for Affirmative Action.

Der, who also spoke at Boudin’s anti-recall rally last weekend, accused the recall organizers of “race-baiting” to achieve their goal of removing Boudin from office.

The image, which was posted online, was created by the Recall Chesa Boudin campaign. The group failed to gather enough signatures to put the recall onto the ballot last year, but another recall campaign, Safer SF Without Boudin, successfully submitted more than 83,000 signatures to qualify for a recall election this June.

2 Recall Disrupters 3.5.2022
Recall campaign disrupt DA Boudin rally with bullhorns – March 5, 2022

Richie Greenberg, a local Republican Party activist who is leading the Recall Chesa Boudin campaign, doubled down Thursday in a statement blasting the DA.

26 Anti-Chesa Poster
A new disgraceful low in San Francisco political history. David Sacks, a bagman in the recent School Board recall, has contributed $75,000 in the effort to oust the DA

“We have to talk about Chesa’s communist, socialist roots,” Greenberg said in a statement, pointing to Boudin’s work for Hugo Chavez, the late President of Venezuela and leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. “The vast majority of the Asian community opposes Maoist ideas and find Chesa offensive, views captured well by this poster.”

Boudin is a registered Democrat and the county’s Democratic Party voted overwhelmingly to oppose the recall.

Greenberg called the officials who attended Thursday’s press conference—including current supervisor Connie Chan, former supervisors Sandra Fewer, Norman Yee, and Mabel Teng, as well as retired judge Julie Tang—a group of “far-left progressive extremists” who are “the reason San Francisco is in such dire shape.”

Supervisor Connie Chan, a Chinese immigrant, was attacked with a similar poster in 2020 that depicted her in a communist-style poster with Fewer.

Julie Edwards, Boudin’s campaign spokesperson, said the district attorney and his supporters were “appalled by these racist, anti-Asian posters.” They also demanded an apology.

DA Chesa Boudin Recall: Asian American Leaders Condemn ‘Racist,’ Communist-Style Poster