Former Arkansas Gov Mike Huckabee has been slammed on Twitter for his ‘racist’ and ‘anti-Asian’ tweet claiming he will ‘identify as Chinese’ so that Coca-Cola, Delta and Nike will like him.
‘I’ve decided to “identify” as Chinese. Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my “values” and I’ll probably get shoes from Nike & tickets to @MLB games. Ain’t America great?’ Huckabee tweeted Saturday morning.
Huckabee appeared to be referring to Georgia’s sweeping new voting law, which many have blasted as voter suppression, while also mocking those who oppose hate and violence against Asian Americans.
His remarks come just a week after a 65-year-old woman was viciously attacked while walking to church near New York City’s Times Square. The attack heightened already palpable levels of outrage over anti-Asian attacks that escalated with the pandemic.
The New York assault came just two weeks after a white gunman opened fire inside three Asian-owned massage businesses in metro Atlanta. Eight people, including six women of Asian descent, died.
Meanwhile, three groups already have filed a lawsuit over the Georgia measure, which adds greater legislative control over how elections are run and includes strict identification requirements for voting absentee by mail. It also limits the use of ballot drop boxes and makes it a crime to hand out food or water to voters waiting in line, among other provisions.
Huckabee’s remarks prompted several people to take to social media to blast the former governor for claiming to be ‘Christian’ but spewing Asian ‘hate’ speech.
Former Arkansas Gov Mike Huckabee (pictured) has been slammed on Twitter for his ‘racist’ and ‘anti-Asian’ tweet amid incessant attacks on Asian Americans
‘I’ve decided to “identify” as Chinese. Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my “values” and I’ll probably get shoes from Nike & tickets to @MLB games. Ain’t America great?’ Huckabee tweeted Saturday morning
‘WHOA. Racist, much, Mike? The Evangelical Christians are OUT OF CONTROL with hate. You lead the way,’ one person tweeted.
Another wrote: ‘Wow is this appalling. Six Asian American women were massacred on March 16. Last weekend, an Asian woman your age was beaten and kicked in NYC and is still in hospital with broken bones and a concussion. Every day Asian/AAPI people are victimized by hate crimes. Delete this.’
California Congressman Ted Lieu tweeted: ‘Hey Mike Huckabee, I asked around and Coke likes me, Delta agrees with my values, I wear Nikes and my hometown Dodgers won the World Series. But it’s not because of my ethnicity. It’s because I’m not a sh*thead like you who is adding fuel to anti-Asian hate.’
‘Pretty racist and scummy. Hope Twitter bans you for fomenting anti-Asian hate,’ another wrote.
Activist Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting in February 2018, shared: ‘I have decided to identify you as a hater of America, Democracy, and Decency and to simply identify you as an a– hole.’
Huckabee’s tweet also hit out at the MLB, which yanked its All-Star game from Georgia after Gov Brian Kemp signed a new voting law that critics say will disproportionately affect communities of color.
The Republican governor said at a news conference that MLB ‘caved to fear and lies from liberal activists’ when it yanked the July 13 game from Atlanta’s Truist Park. He added the decision will hurt working people in the state and have long-term consequences on the economy.
‘I want to be clear: I will not be backing down from this fight. We will not be intimidated, and we will also not be silenced,’ Kemp said.
Huckabee’s remarks prompted several people to take to social media to blast the former governor for claiming to be ‘Christian’ but spewing Asian ‘hate’ speech
‘Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola and Delta may be scared of Stacey Abrams, Joe Biden and the left, but I am not,’ he said, referring to companies that have also criticized the new law.
Georgia Republicans say the changes were needed to maintain voter confidence in the election system, and the governor insists opponents have mischaracterized what the law does. Yet GOP lawmakers made the revisions largely in response to false claims of fraud in the 2020 elections made by former President Donald Trump and his supporters.
Abrams, who has championed voting rights since narrowly losing to Kemp in the 2018 election, is among those who have spoken out against the law. The Democrat is being closely watched to see if she seeks a 2022 rematch.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred previously said he made the call to move the All-Star events and the amateur draft from Atlanta after discussions with individual players and the Players Alliance, an organization of black players formed after the death of George Floyd last year.
A new ballpark for the events wasn’t immediately revealed.
Kemp also criticized the league for not trying to improve voter access in its home state of New York, where he said voters need an excuse to vote by mail and have fewer days of early voting than in Georgia.
He said its decision means ‘cancel culture’ is coming for American businesses and jobs.
Former president Donald Trump also blasted the league’s move, while former president Barack Obama congratulated MLB for its decision, saying there was no better way for baseball to honor [Hank] Aaron, ‘who always led by example’.
Meanwhile, US Attorney General Merrick Garland has ordered a review of how the Justice Department can best deploy its resources to combat hate crimes during a surge in incidents targeting Asian Americans.
Garland issued a department-wide memo announcing the 30-day review, citing the ‘recent rise in hate crimes and hate incidents, particularly the disturbing trend in reports of violence against members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community since the start of the pandemic’.
Asian American activists say Trump is partly to blame because of his rhetoric around COVID-19, which he frequently referred to as the ‘Chinese virus’.
They say he gave license for people to show racism that was already rooted in decades of anti-Asian sentiment in the US.
According to a report from Stop AAPI Hate, more than 3,800 anti-Asian incidents were reported to the organization between March 2020 through February.
The group, which tracks incidents of discrimination, hate and xenophobia against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S., said that number is “only a fraction of the number of hate incidents that actually occur.”
According to the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, hate crimes targeting Asians ballooned by 150 per cent last year, while hate crimes overall during the pandemic went down 7 per cent.