As a teenager, I remember my father had an authorless poem posted on our basement wall about three things that cannot be undone: an arrow sent upon its path, a lost opportunity, and the spoken word:
The spoken word so soon forgot by thee, but it has perished not. In others’Hearts ”tis living still” and doing work for good or ill.
John Hamasaki recently announced that he is running for San Francisco District Attorney in November. Exactly like Chesa Boudin, Hamasaki is a former SF public defender with no prosecutorial experience. He also recently served on the San Francisco Police Commission.
Hamasaki is best known for the shocking and crude comments he has posted on the Twitter platform. On September 18, 2020, I sent a public records request to Commissioner Hamasaki to confirm that he was the one that posted on Twitter:
Can we get a 911 for white people who get upset when they see a person of color? Like punch “K” on your phone three times.
Hamasaki emailed back. “Happy to confirm that was my response.” It seems that as a DA candidate now, his enthusiasm has weakened and he is afraid to stand behind his published words, as he recently deleted all of his controversial Twitter posts.
Sampling of Hamasaki’s Twitter posts[1]
1. February 2, 2021: The gang-infested LA sheriff’s dept apparently turned over their social media account to QAnon rep Marjorie taylor greene.
2. February 4, 2021: White racist supremacists have been pushing them (mug shots) to push their racist agenda through the media for decades.
3. On February 7, 2021, Hamasaki attacked the 9.9 million voters that supported the previous fall’s Uber/independent contractor ballot measure: “Fuck Prop 22 as a ballot measure, a record label, and as a crew. If you voted for Prop 22, then Fuck you too.
4. October 18, 2018, Hamasaki attacked the Asian affirmative action suit against Harvard University, Asian-American Affirmative-Action Lawsuit Against Harvard Has Always Been On Behalf Of Mediocre White People.’
5. October 28, 2018, At this point claiming you are a republican just for the fiscal conservativism is like saying you are in the KKK just because of the discounts on linens.
6. February 12, 2019, At least we know why the Oracle convention left San Francisco. Not the most friendly turf for white supremacists.
7. April 19, 2019: Fuck Joe Biden and his racist campaign. Not sure why we expected an old segregationist to change, eh @SenKamalaHarris?
Hamasaki’s posts on Twitter violated SF Police Commission policy
As a then “member” of the SF Police Commission, Hamasaki was subject to General Order 2.01(14) on public courtesy: “While on or off duty, members shall treat the public with courtesy and respect and not use harsh or uncivil language.”
Furthermore, General Order 2.09(I) states, “All members are reminded that they are strictly accountable for their conduct at all times, whether on or off duty. Members who maintain personal social media accounts and disseminate information related to their employment must understand their social media accounts may discredit the Department.”
There was no doubt that Hamasaki was representing the police commission when he posted these polarizing tweets, as he identified himself in his Twitter profile as a “San Francisco Police Commissioner.” Ask yourself: Do you think giving police commission authority over officers’ discipline, to a man with Hamasaki’s perspective , was not both hypocritical and demoralizing to SFPD officers?
Hamasaki’s racist Twitter post
On July 25, 2019, San Francisco Police Commissioner Hamasaki retweeted the following tweet with the N-word (I have blacked out the complete word because it is just too offensive to show):
For readers unfamiliar with Twitter, “retweeting” means that Hamasaki saw someone else’s Twitter post, and then forwarded it—like a chain letter-- to his network of followers and friends.
Three Issues with Hamasaki’s retweet:
First, we all agree the word is hateful. Let me jump in front of the progressive apologists on Hamasaki’s offensive retweet: Hamasaki didn’t write the word; he was merely forwarding his client’s tweet.
By Hamasaki retweeting the word, he was perpetuating the spread of the word’s usage. He could have qualified his retweet as including a word he didn’t personally approve of. But he didn’t, which is effectively condoning the word. And he sent this from a Twitter profile where he represented himself as a “member” of the San Francisco Police Commission. Hamasaki created unnecessary and additional embarrassment to our city.
San Francisco police officers have been brought up on charges before the Police Commission for merely being the recipient of a text that included this word and by failing to taking action. Yet here is an example of a person, who at the time he was on the SF Police Commission, forwarded the same nasty word to others.
Second, for a man so singularly consumed with race, Hamasaki demonstrated little sensitivity to Chief Scott, DA Jenkins, or Mayor Breed and how they feel about a non-Black man permeating a word that is infused with such historic pain?
Third, no matter what then-Commissioner Hamasaki’s relationship was with the author, it does not justify retweeting the conversations of a man who beat a murder rap, was a known gangster, plead to firing a gun from a moving vehicle, and was ultimately murdered himself? Didn’t we just recall a DA that was too close to his former criminal clients?
Hamasaki is not a viable candidate
Under traditional San Francisco voting tabulations, Hamasaki would have zero chance of winning this fall. But that is not what this election is about. Hamasaki represents an opportunity for progressives to:
1) bloody potential 2023 DA candidates[2] that don’t favor social experimenting with the City’s safety. It’s Boudin’s modus operandi to have others do his dirty work: his staff leaked confidential juvenile information to the Washington Post, created a fake Dion Lim website, Lara Bazelon had to debate for him, and now Hamasaki will throw blows at every DA candidate to discourage their run against Boudin in 2023, and
2) it will test the randomness of ranked-choice-voting. The system that allowed Chesa Boudin to gain office with only 35.6% of the vote because he split Suzie Loftus’ 31.1% and Nancy Tung’s 19.3% vote.
Hamasaki, a shallow person, so lacking in conviction that he had to scrub all his prior Twitter posts. For San Francisco voters that recognize progressivism is preventing the City from recovering like the rest of the country, the DA 2022 election gives us an opportunity to practice freezing-out the extremist candidate from the ranked choice system.
Hamasaki’s words are still doing work for ill. Make sure to tell your friends to keep him off their one-through-three ranked choices as preparation run for Boudin’s 2023 run! Boudin was spreading his Kool-Aid as recently as last week in Sonoma:
You can access my previous articles here.
If you have been reading the Chronicle’s Megan Cassidy’s recent attacks on the current DA, you might want to read my September 2021 article, which Cassidy won’t write about. My article covers how former DA Chesa Boudin suddenly went from renting a small apartment at the Ocean Beach to living in a $2.25 million Sunset home that one of his first campaign donors bought as the “grantee” of the Suruwai Trust.
[1] The first three of the following Hamasaki posts I previously wrote about. Post four through seven were photo-captured and provided to me by a source.
[2] The November 2022 DA election is just to elect a DA to complete Chesa Boudin’s original term that would have expired at the end of 2023. There will be anoter District Attorney election in November 2023 to select a candidate to complete the next four-year term of 2024 through 2027.
Lou - Your dad was obviously a very smart man;
The spoken word so soon forgot by thee, but it has perished not.
In others’ Hearts ”tis living still” and doing work for good or ill.
John Hamasaki apparently sees himself as a bit of a poet, spoken word artist, or ghetto rapper based on his colorful language and witty suggestions about pounding KKK by White paranoids instead of 911. Though the language he chooses is crude, it hurts no one. People decide what value to give words. Blacks have claimed their previously bigotted insulting term as their sole and separate cultural property, so while it will get any non-Black person branded as a hater or a fool for using it, those Blacks, like S.F. Board of Sups. Pres. Shamann Walton think they have a perfect right to sling and fling that thing at will. If nothing else, the words we choose do tell people something about whether or not we are compassionate and thoughtful, or not.
For the stats, the percentage changes are only significant over a longer period of time like Qrtly, Semi Annual, Annual. I guess it was one of your other posts that noted a dead man, or one year later as no longer shown on the records of SFPD as being dead. I'm sure his family is not pleased by his statistical resurrection.
Hi Lou
Thanks for this article on Hamasaki. He sounds like a great guy and now definitely has my vote.
Thanks again- Marl