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President
Joe
Biden
reportedly selected Rahm
Emanuel,
the former Chicago mayor and Obama chief of staff, as his pick for
U.S. Ambassador to Japan. Emanuel is the worst possible choice for a
diplomat to any country. He just doesn't strike anyone as a
diplomatic person because he pisses people off. But more importantly,
Rahm Emanuel should not have any role in the Biden administration or
any public office for that matter.
Emanuel
doesn’t know the first thing about Japan
or foreign affairs,
other than his love
for war.
As someone who lived and worked in Japan and majored in East Asian
Studies in college, I will bet I have far more knowledge of Japan and
much more experience in the region than Rahm Emanuel, but that’s
another story. And the man should not be allowed anywhere near a
government position, not even in charge of mowing the White House
lawn, because of his record of disrespecting Black people and
covering up the police murder of a Black teen named Laquan
McDonald.
Did
Joe Biden think we forgot about this, or is he just politically
tone-deaf?
McDonald,
17, was shot by one of Chicago Officer
Jason Van Dyke,
murdered in a hail of 15
bullets
in October 2014 — in the midst of Mayor Emanuel’s
reelection bid. Or those who remember, 2014 was the time of the Black
Lives Matter 1.0 uprising, a year that also claimed Eric
Garner in
New York, Michael
Brown
in Ferguson, Missouri and Tamir
Rice in
Cleveland to police violence.
Van
Dyke was convicted
in 2018
and sentenced to six years and nine months for second-degree murder
and 16 counts of aggravated battery.
It
is worth noting that the city of Chicago sketchily settled with
McDonald’s family for $5 million, and the video of the atrocity
was not released by a court until April 2015 — seven
months
after Rahm Emanuel was reelected. How convenient. Would he have won
had the video of the execution of a Black teen been released in the
middle of his reelection campaign? Perhaps we’ll never know.
The
ex-mayor defended
his actions
in the McDonald case if that is at all possible. "This is not
the first police shooting in Chicago's history. But it is the
shooting that's led to the biggest changes," Emanuel said in a
Showtime
documentary, also claiming he did not view the video footage until it
was released. “I know the reforms we’ve made. Body camera
with every officer, all 13,000 ahead of schedule. A taser to every
officer, training associated with it, de-escalation policies,
separation of mental health from a crime” he added referring to
policing reforms he blocked every step of the way before taking
credit for them.
“Even
after the footage went public and demonstrations started, Emanuel
opposed a federal civil rights investigation into the Chicago police
and failed to deliver on civilian oversight of the department,”
as Rep.
Jamaal Bowman
reminded
us in a commentary
for The
Appeal.
“In fact, Emanuel said that police were getting ‘fetal’
in the age of bystander video. Apparently ‘tough-on-crime’
isn’t tough enough for Rahm.”
When
Biden was considering Emanuel for U.S. trade representative, after
backlash from progressives tanked his bid for transportation
secretary, Rep.
Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez
of New York tweeted: "What is so hard to understand about this?
Rahm Emanuel helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Covering
up a murder is disqualifying for public leadership. This is not about
the 'visibility of a post. It is shameful and concerning that he is
even being considered."
Rahm
Emanuel covered up the murder of a Black teenager, Laquan McDonald,
while he was Mayor of Chicago,” tweeted Congressman
Mondaire
Jones.
“That he’s being considered for a cabinet position is
completely outrageous and, honestly, very hurtful.”
As
consequential as the death of Laquan McDonald and Rahm Emanuel's
cover-up may have been, this is not the only reason for denying the
man such an important and cushy job. Emanuel has a long record of
disrespecting Black people in Chicago and beyond. Obama must have
seen something in him to keep him around — and Biden wants him
back — but what that might be is anyone's guess.
Let
us not forget that as mayor, Rahm Emanuel slashed millions of dollars
from the Chicago
public schools,
with draconian cuts to counselors and social workers, and two-thirds
of school librarians. He closed
50 schools
in predominantly
Black neighborhoods,
and he pushed for public school privatization and for-profit
alternative schools, charter schools and undermining teachers’
unions.
Emanuel
has displayed sexism and racism and employed harmful racial
stereotypes toward other groups. For example, in 2019 he asked an
Asian-American
woman,
a climate activist: Are you “up for adoption? … You’re
quiet, right? You do a lot of studying?”
If
you disrespect the AAPI community, and your Japanese experience is
limited to having a sushi
roll
named after you, you should not be the U.S. ambassador to Japan. But
if your legacy in government service centers around your coverup of
the execution of a Black boy by a white police officer — and
bullying people — well, that should further disqualify you from
this and any other job.
An
Ambassador Rahm Emanuel would amount to nothing less than a slap in
the face to Black voters who supported Biden, and the Black Lives
Matter movement. If Biden wants to maintain Black support, he must
not give Rahm Emanuel any position in the administration.
This commentary was originally published by The Grio
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