Letters: Don’t forget Jan. 6 or what led up to it; Demand justice for Christian Hall
Editor’s note: The Centre Daily Times welcomes letters endorsing candidates in the May 18 primary election and will accept letters that are received by May 10. Letters are subject to editing, must be based on facts and should avoid attacks on other candidates.
Don’t forget Jan. 6 or what led up to it
It’s now been three months since Jan. 6, one of the darkest days in American history. The storming of the U.S. Capitol should remind us all that “it really can happen here.”
It didn’t have to be that way. For four years Republicans in power did nothing to counter the lies and bullying that set that stage for the insurrection. Spineless Republicans in Congress and State Houses even went along with Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the election was rigged and fraudulent, despite zero evidence that either are true.
Congressmen Glenn Thompson and Fred Keller joined 124 other House Republicans in a Texas lawsuit to overturn the results of the presidential election. After the Supreme Court tossed out that meritless effort, and after members of Congress had to flee the Capitol Building to protect themselves from a violent mob, Thompson and Keller still voted against the actual certification of electoral votes that had already been certified by each state.
Pennsylvania State Senator Jake Corman and State Representative Kerry Benninghoff are using Trump’s Big Lie as a transparent excuse to meddle in Pennsylvania elections and impose voting restrictions in the future.
They all want you to forget what they did and ignore what they’re doing now. Don’t let them get away with it. Call them up, and call them out, every chance you get. They owe us sincere apologies for their past actions, and honest explanations for their current and future attempts to suppress voting or rig elections.
Demand justice for Christian Hall
As with the death of Osaze Osagie in State College, the recent police killing (Dec. 30, 2020) of the Chinese American teen Christian Hall in Monroe County in eastern Pennsylvania could have been avoided if we had different protocols for responding to people in a mental health crisis.
For decades we have starved our society of mental health services, leaving police to perform duties they were never intended to perform, duties that rightly belong to response teams specially created for people in distress. The tragic result: nationwide, 25% of people killed by police have mental health issues.
Christian had his hands in the air when police shot him, but the Monroe County District Attorney has declined to prosecute the officers involved. The way Christian died causes us to lose trust in police, making their actions appear to endanger public safety instead of promoting it.
It’s also important that Christian was an Asian American. Though Monroe County is largely rural and peaceful, it is not immune from larger trends of excessive violence toward people who are not white. Since the pandemic Asian Americans have experienced an estimated 3,800 hate crimes across the U.S.
We cannot pretend that if we do nothing these injustices will go away. I join the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance in asking CDT readers to stand up for justice for Christian Hall. Please sign this petition at apipa.vote/AG, which demands that state Attorney General Josh Shapiro take on Christian’s investigation.