Public comment at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting took on an angry and sometimes violent tone from more than 60 mostly anti-vaccine speakers.
But the level of discord reached new heights when Jason Robo, an aspiring comedian who claims to have gone to high school in San Diego, threatened several of the supervisors and hurled a racist slur at County Public Health Officer Dr. Wilma Wooten. Robo referred to Wooten, who is a Black woman, as Aunt Jemima.
Supervisor Nora Vargas immediately put a stop to it.
“You are not allowed to say that to her,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
Vargas requested that Robo apologize, but he did not and instead continued to hurl insults towards Vargas about her body.
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Aunt Jemima was the Quaker logo based on a racist stereotype of the so-called “mammy” figure, an enslaved or servile Black woman who takes care of white families. Quaker stopped using the name and brand in 2020 amidst the country’s racial reckoning after the murder of George Floyd.
The meeting was particularly raucous with several people interrupting speakers and heckling supervisors. Ahead of the vote on the county’s ongoing COVID-19 response, Chair Nathan Fletcher had someone removed from the chamber for continuing to interrupt the meeting.
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Addressing the chamber, Fletcher said he appreciates people exercising their First Amendment rights and participating in democracy, but admonished the behavior that’s fast becoming the norm at these meetings.
“So much of what these meetings have devolved into is this type of sport or game to see how vulgar or outrageous or offensive you can be,” he said. “It’s vile, and it’s disgusting, and it’s outrageous and it contributes nothing to what we’re doing.”
Vargas then spoke, underscoring that racism is a public health crisis and has no place in San Diego County board meetings.
“I will not tolerate racism, particularly I will not tolerate anti-Blackness,” she said. “The comments today are hate speech, not free speech, and that needs to stop.”
In response to Tuesday’s racist incident, Shane Harris, president of the People’s Association of Justice Advocates, called on the Board of Supervisors to create a policy that would end a person’s public comment time if they use racist language.
