An Asian American city councilwoman in California says she is fighting to deal with cancel culturists who have known her hounded her for weeks following a dispute with a local Black activist.
Lynette Lee Eng, a nonpartisan city councilwoman at Los Altos, was in the middle of a formal Zoom assembly on Nov. 24 when she received a text message from a 22-year-old regional activist called Kenan Moos whining about the way she'd voted.
She said the case illustrates how counter tops organized and culture shaming and intimidation can interfere with officials' routine responsibilities in addition to maintain them scared of speaking their minds honestly and getting meaningful work done. Moos and his supporters have repeatedly returned into following city council meetings to re-air their own grievances.
"It makes it hard to clearly express your position, because you have to constantly rethink it," she told Fox News on Friday. "You ought to make sure it's stated properly so no one takes offense, because if not, this is what is likely to happen to you."
Lee Eng, who speaks slowly and deliberately, stated that she's survived a stroke and already goes to amazing lengths to articulate her own ideas. The drama only makes her job harder, she explained.
"If you are in the more popular view, needless to say, it's easy for you to perform your job," she explained.
But occasionally constituents have concerns that may align with unpopular positions.
"We must be considerate that there are concerns that need to be raised, to make sure that we can have a dialogue," she explained. "And perhaps we can attempt to work out compromises."
Furthermore, anti-Asian American hate crimes are on the rise. Destructive woke mobs vandalizing people's houses are on the upswing. And the idea that free speech ought to be protected has become contentious.
And of course, a fellow Los Altos councilwoman lately pushed into apologizing by precisely the same set of activists just a couple of months ago after she used the phrase"you're from your cotton-picking mind" when speaking in opposition to an outside mask mandate.
And Lee Eng stated all that combined had her concerned about herself, her family and her home when Moos' text message popped up.
"We all want to ensure people are respected not only for the colour of the skin...not just the race, but the civilizations, the diversity of thought," she explained. "People will need to feel secure to be able to express themselves, and if I do not feel safe, which must tell you my constituents don't feel secure."
The proposition in question would have created third-party control over complaints against the Los Altos Police Department, which has just got one use-of-force complaint in the previous six decades, from 15 total reports. Lee Eng said she wished to find out more about the program's cost to taxpayers prior to voting.
At the center of the official meeting, the activist delivered her a direct text on her phone.
"Your title will probably be all over the papers," he cautioned, according to Lee Eng.
"We are aware that there are racists that supported you," he continued. "You are trying to delay this. It has nothing to do with funding."
She talked and explained she'd received a text in the activist and had concerns for her safety.
Subsequently the blowback began. Moos and his assistants demanded her resignation, started showing up frequently at city council meetings to replicate their concerns and pressured other council members to censure Lee Eng.
Moos said during a meeting that"Lynette, your false accusations have increased the odds I could be murdered by the police," according to the San Jose-based Mercury News.
He likened himself to Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black Chicago boy lynched and mutilated by a Mississippi mob in 1955 following a White woman falsely accused him of a minor offense.
But based on Freddie Wheeler, a city resident who has defended Lee Eng from Moos' supporters, Moos is the son of a physician and a technician CEO, living in Silicon Valley and in his senior year in the University of Oregon. He founded a Dark Lives Matter-aligned group named Justice Vanguard to advocate for social justice in his area.
"The idea that [Los Altos] police are gont take him is so ludicrous that it's actually outrageous," Wheeler explained.
Los Altos is an affluent neighborhood in California's Santa Clara County, a part of Silicon Valley.
Moos has claimed that his texts were not threats, and even wrote as much in one of them, explicitly stating that they had been"in no way a threat of any sort."
Along with also his repeated insistence on that point brought local media outlets and some residents to begin claiming she had falsely accused him of making an immediate threat to her and her loved ones.
But believed in the larger context, Lee Eng stated it's easy to feel dangerous when moving against the grain.
She points to a national increase in hate crimes targeting Asian Americans as well as horse parties in other Bay Area officials' homes that included graffiti, vandalism and flag burning.
She said that the texts did not have to include an immediate threat of physical violence from Moos to make her fear for her safety.
She also said the concerted attempt to shame and intimidate her makes it hard to perform her job and could probably dissuade"good people to step up to run for office later on."
"I support social justice issues, social justice issues," she said. "I pushed for implicit bias training inside town.
At least two residents discussed in support of their councilwoman in a recent assembly, according to the Los Altos Town Crier. They noted that the increase in hate crimes targeting Asian Americans across the united states in addition to mob bullying focused right on Lee Eng. They also noted that her campaign signs were defaced last year with the phrase"racist."
Wheeler was one of these residents.
"Are you showing her the exact same lack of respect that you accuse others of revealing you by not thinking her?" She inquired Moos' supporters.
