Jinyoung Lee Englund: a post-racial candidate for a post-racial America
The perfect candidate for the 55% of White people who feel discriminated against
Jinyoung Lee Englund — Republican candidate for the Washington’s 45th Legislative District special election for State Senator— is, by all accounts, a bright, delightful person. She does something in tech doing something with Bitcoin and is a millennial, so, you know, she can speak substantively about the future. She takes lots of endearing doorbelling pics. Lots. She’s married to a military man. She’s a minority but one with the “right” values — a model, some might say.
All eyes — and a ton of money — are on this race. It’s the determining seat for the entire state government. If county prosecutor Manka Dhingra wins, Democrats will control the Executive Office and both State Senate and House of Representatives. If startup upstart Jinyoung Lee Englund wins, the GOP will continue its single-seat stranglehold on getting anything productive done.
It’s noteworthy that two Women of Color are running for this seat. It’s noteworthy, too, that that fact doesn’t seem to be of note to anyone in particular.
The demographics of the 45th are changing. While it’s traditionally been the enclave of the white wealthy folks who made their fortune or near-fortune on the economic great white shark of Microsoft and the subsequent business consulting remoras, this purple swing district is becoming increasingly brown.
Though Jinyoung is a person of color hoping to represent an increasingly browning 45th LD, she’s taken several policy positions that negatively affect brown and black folks to a disproportionate degree. Despite overwhelming evidence by non-partisan sources, she blatantly denies Washington has a regressive tax structure — never mind that poor people (who are, disproportionately, of color) pay a greater percentage of their income in taxes than their wealthier counterparts. When it comes to this federal administration’s attack on immigrants and other POCs, she rejects our state’s leading position in fighting discriminatory, overreaching executive actions:
When asked whether she supported [Washington State Attorney General Bob] Ferguson’s lawsuits against the administration’s immigrant travel ban and the decision to end a program that protects young undocumented immigrants know as Dreamers, Englund said, “I think the attorney general is stepping outside of his bounds …”
Jinyoung belongs to a party with a long tradition of using racism as a political tool, and her side is re-upping on that “heritage” and white anxiety. See the “fault on all sides”-ing of Charlottesville, John Kelly’s remarks on slavery, or this ridiculous photo taken by GOP leaders on purpose and with pride (for what it’s worth, Jinyoung’s old boss Cathy McMorris Rogers is the token lady in red):
The GOP, as it stands, doesn’t have a small government, conservative ideology as much as it has a “preserve rich (mostly white) people’s wealth” ideology. Its current leader rose to power uncoding and loudly shouting old racial dog whistles. This clan of crackpots and amateur revisionist historians is her tribe. These folks are running her campaign and steering her Political Action Committee.
Being a Republican doesn’t make you racist (though being a racist might make you a Republican). Systemic racism is demonstrating force, too, in the Democratic party (see: just last year’s party leadership) — any institution that was founded before the last few decades, for that matter. But Republicans did make the Willie Horton ad, and Jinyoung’s PAC created their own version of one of the most racist political ads ever. Her campaign is attacking identities (that aren’t even her opponent!) instead of the debating the substantive issues at hand.
Jinyoung Lee Englund isn’t a racist. She just belongs to a hella racist party — an institution that’s been trading on racial grievances and scare tactics for decades.
There is a difference between personal and systemic racism. That distinction is an important level of nuance that’s missing from our racial discourse. The way we talk about the origins of racial discrimination, ironically, has become too personal. Our collective cult of personality shoehorns us into talking about racists when the real culprit is racism. That’s no clearer than when a majority of white people in America claim in a new poll they’ve faced discrimination.
The histrionic defensiveness around which individuals clutch their pearls at the mere risk of being called a “racist” is instinctive and without thought. It makes folks who aren’t exposed to real, systemic oppression feel discriminated against. And most importantly, it’s detrimental to the conversation we should be having that actually aims to solve our race problem.
We have real issues — from poverty to criminal justice to education — that are all exacerbated by a systemic approach that inherently excluded the voices of many. Even if we accept that every legislator in the history of America was well-intentioned, 99% of our laws were written, voted on, and signed by white dudes. And what every one of us knows from, you know, the normal course of living a human life is that our ability to perceive problems and identify solutions are severely limited by our experiences.
Thank White Jesus for Jinyoung Lee Englund being a Republican of Color. Changing any institution requires a true inside/outside strategy. Jinyoung clearly has a bright future ahead of her in the GOP, and if there’s any hope of returning to the American people sane, governing opposition, she’s going to have to own the racism rampant in her party. But if she’s running and gunning from the same playbook as all the other Republicans that came before her, it won’t help us at all.
