Hernandez loses endorsement after ‘racist dog whistle’ remarks at debate

Rep. Aisha Wahab has again chastised her competitor in the race for Congressional District 14 for what she called a “racist dog whistle” comment at a recent debate.

The remark also has local Democratic officials probing a possible censure of the congressional candidate, BART Board President Melissa Hernandez.

As a result of her comment, Hernandez has now lost one of her prominent endorsements.

Wahab, who is Muslim, ridiculed Hernandez in an interview with Bay Area News Group on Friday. The transit official asserted in a debate in Dublin on Wednesday night that Wahab had been having open talks with the Taliban, the terrorist organization that controls Afghanistan.

“It was a desperate attempt to distract from what she really has to offer,” Wahab said. “It was purely racist, purely anti-Muslim and a very desperate attempt to distract from her lack of a record of experience and lack of character.”

Hernandez did not return a request for comment on this story on Friday.

“The reality is I’d be the Taliban’s worst nightmare: a woman who’s educated, living in America and living the American Dream,” Wahab continued. “[Hernandez] mentioned that to kind of elevate the fact that I am an American-born woman of Afghan descent.”

Hernandez’s remark was aimed at an August interview with Democracy Now!, when Wahab said on television that “regardless of which group is in power, we should be exercising diplomacy and having a relationship” with the leaders of Afghanistan.

The remark was “inflammatory” enough for Kashef Qaadri, a Dublin councilmember, to pull his endorsement of Hernandez. He declined to comment further on Friday, but confirmed to Bay Area News Group he rescinded his endorsement following the debate.

In a press release on Thursday, Hernandez wrote that “what I was in the process of saying was that I oppose establishing diplomatic relations with the Taliban,” referencing Wahab’s interview.

“I fundamentally disagree with establishing formal diplomatic relations with a government that continues to deny its own people basic human rights. I will never confuse compassion for the Afghan people with acceptance of the Taliban’s oppressive leadership.”

The two candidates are locked in a race for the full term to replace the disgraced Eric Swalwell, who resigned from Congress this year amid sexual misconduct allegations. Wahab beat Hernandez in the Aug. 18 special election for the remainder of Swalwell’s term with 53% of the vote to her competitor’s 47%.

Nasrina Bargzie, a Concord-based lawyer and Afghan American woman, told Bay Area News Group she has been paying close attention to the race.

She said Wahab’s rise in American politics through the state senate into Congress has been a point of pride for others in the region’s Afghan American community.

“It felt like a gut punch,” Bargzie said. “I think it actually creates a dangerous environment for the larger Afghan community in the Bay Area.”

She said Hernandez’s remarks “put our community in danger” and added that “it’s beneath our leaders to use racist tropes for our community.”

“I’m not a voter in that district, but if I was, it would not make me want to vote for Melissa Hernandez,” Bargzie said.

In the aftermath of the debate, Igor Tregub, the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee Chairman, said his colleagues are not happy with Hernandez’s comments.

“I have been made aware that there is a desire by one or more members of the Alameda County Democratic Party to call to censure member Hernandez,” Tregub told Bay Area News Group on Friday.

He declined to offer more details into what that censure proceeding would look like, and said that the committee wouldn’t even be able to officially discuss it until its next meeting eight days after the Nov. 3 election.

But he said that he had heard about Hernandez’s closing statements at the debate and called her comments “Islamaphobic.”

“I find these comments to be absolutely repugnant and reprehensible,” Tregub said. “And there should be no place for them in our public discourse anywhere, let alone a candidate for an office in Alameda County.”