RACIST POLITICIAN FIGHTS "B.O." ON BUSES

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HONOLULU CITY COUNCILMAN ROD TAM SMELLS, SOMETHING AWFUL

BUT HE'S TRYING TO FIX THE PROBLEM

Is He Promising Not To Ride Da Bus?

This is the guy who used the term "wetbacks" in a public meeting not too long ago. His new racist offensive is targeted at foreigners whose hygiene standards may be different, or at the poor whose access to bathrooms is limited --In part by lax planning, zoning, building and housing codes and a lack of affordable housing and public facilities. Tam's our Zoning Committee Chairman, by the way, so he's responsible for a lot of that. But it's so much easier to target the disenfranchised and humiliate & punish them than it is to offer real solutions that are already available elsewhere and to people with money right here in Honolulu.

The fact that Tam has already established himself as a race-warrior with his attacks on "wetbacks" makes this new measure smell pretty bad in itself. The homeless population and immigration from global-warming and economic depression victims throughout the Asia-Pacific region keep growing, putting some less recent immigrants' and forgetful long-time Locals' noses out of joint, "Aloha" be damned. Da Bus is one of the few places where the old and the new, the poor and the middle classes come into contact. Maybe now is the time those living in comfort paid attention to the problems of the system that has benefited them so much more than others.

The solution to the unpleasant realities of poverty and disenfranchisement is not the typical conservative one of punishing the victims by criminalizing poverty, but the more liberal approach of helping people to help themselves. More affordable housing, more living-wage jobs, more public facilities for health and hygiene are a better and, in the long run, cheaper and more workable solution than locking immigrants up for smelling different, or fining homeless people for having no access to bathrooms. If you think the buses smell bad, wait till you smell the jails, the courtrooms and the prisons. But, if you're middle class, you probably never will smell them. Auwe, brah, dey steenk, ho!


HONOLULU STAR BULLETIN
"Tam sorry for saying ‘wetbacks‘"
Note how Tam harps on his own ethnicity, Chinese, as if that somehow makes it OK to disparage others. Typical Hawaii BS. So is his comparison of "liberal" [?] Hawaii with the evil haole [white] Mainland.

' On May 13, Tam's Council Zoning Committee discussed the planned University of Hawaii-West Oahu campus in Kapolei. Tam warned the developers that labor unions are saying "that they (the developers' workers) have to be skilled, licensed workers. We don't want any, uh, wetbacks, basically." The Council's Zoning Committee, of which Tam serves as chairman, discussed development plans for UH-West Oahu on May 13 when Tam warned the developers to have better communication with labor unions. "The concern from (labor unions) is basically that they (the developers' workers) have to be skilled, licensed workers. We don't want any, uh, wetbacks, basically," Tam said. "OK. We've been receiving (reports about) developers or contractors been bringing in wetbacks from New Mexico. Uh, Mexico. I'm sorry. Mexico. OK. Illegal aliens. And that's a problem here, basically. We don't want that type. We want safety building here." "Over here in Hawaii, we're so liberal," Tam told the Star-Bulletin. "We have multiethnic cultures. We don't think in the same terms of the mainland. People look at it different. I learned something, and I apologize if I offended anybody." Tam said he first learned of the offending term through a 1950s musical called "Flower Drum Song," about Chinese illegal immigrants. From this musical, Tam said he thought the term referred to illegal immigrants. "People interpret it differently now," Tam said. "It's a terminology used in the past." '

CBS NEWS KGMB-TV9 HONOLULU: VIDEO
"City Council Member Apologizes For Racial Remarks"
He's sorry "if" he said anything that was "politically incorrect," he says with a sneer. This is the guy who zones your neighborhoods, Honolulu.

' Hispanic community leaders say they've been flooded with calls from people in Hawaii and on the mainland outraged by the remark. Tam recently apologized but not everyone was satisfied. Some want him to step down as chair of the zoning committee and meet with members of the Hispanic community. '

THE HONOLULU ADVERTISER
"Bill targets pungent riders of Honolulu's transit system"
Would this cover Chinese immigrants too, Mr. Tam? Or just homeless Chinese?

' Councilman Rod Tam, a co-sponsor of the bill, explained why it is needed: "As we become more inundated with people from all over the world, their way of taking care of their health is different. Some people, quite frankly, do not take a bath every day and therefore they may be offensive in terms of their odor." '

ABC NEWS KITV-TV4 HONOLULU: VIDEO
"Council Considers BO Ban"
Heath Fascism: Six months in prison for not taking a shower? What about "offensive" odors from soaps, perfumes, colognes, "body sprays," and deodorants? Or garlic ahi, kimchee poke, or sweet balut? Will the police board buses with sniffer dogs? Or do they detect B.O. with their own snouts? Nosy people want to know!

' Honolulu City Council members are considering a proposal to ban riders from buses if their body odor is too stinky. Councilman Rod Tam and Councilman Nestor Garcia introduced the bill to regulate a number of dangerous or annoying behaviors on city buses including bad B.O. Under the bill, police could cite riders if their body odor annoyed others and a convicted offender could face up to $500 in fines or six months in prison. Tam said he's received complaints about bus B.O. "People are very concerned they don't want to get sick when they experience body odor... offensive body odor they identify it with germs, diseases," said Tam. '

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