As a candidate for public office in Fresno, I know putting your name on the ballot line is signing up for public scrutiny. That is part of the job. My positions on issues deserve criticism. My conduct
deserves criticism. Voters have every right to examine what I stand for and decide whether I am fit to serve.

What no candidate should have to sign up for is racism. On social media I have been told to go back to my country. I have been called a towel head and other derogatory remarks.

These comments did not come from some distant troll farm. They came from fellow Americans. And they are not unique to me. Across races and backgrounds, candidates and public officials are
absorbing the same kind of venom. It is making it harder for good people to step forward and serve their communities.

Racism Arises at City Council Meeting

We saw it again at a recent Fresno City Council meeting. A public commenter who identified himself as a District 7 resident directed the N-word at Council President Nelson Esparza, the
current representative of District 7. That moment was not abstract or online. It happened in the chamber, in front of the public, directed at a sitting elected official doing the people’s work.

We have also watched local meme pages traffic in racist imagery. I condemn those memes without qualification, regardless of which candidate they targeted. Using race as a weapon to diminish or dehumanize opponents is not political speech. It is an attack on the basic idea that we are neighbors.

America’s strength has never been that we all agree. It has been that we can disagree without tearing apart the fabric that holds us together. That fabric is the quiet, everyday recognition that
the person next to us, whatever their background, faith, or politics, belongs here, too.

Fresno has long lived that truth. This is a city that has given opportunity to wave after wave of immigrants and their children. It is a place where people from many different communities still find ways to share the same streets, schools, parks, and futures. Most of us still love Fresno, love California, and love this country for exactly that reason.

Yet, in real time, we are watching that fabric fray. Extreme rhetoric has become more common, more personal, and more racialized. It does not stay confined to the internet. It shows up in
public comment periods and in the messages that reach candidates and their families.

When the temperature rises this high, fewer capable, decent people are willing to put their names on a ballot. Public service becomes something only the thickest-skinned or most ambitious are willing to endure. That is a loss for every community that needs thoughtful leadership focused on safe neighborhoods, working infrastructure, and practical results.

We Can Fiercely Debate and Criticize Without Resorting to Racism

I do not believe we have to accept this as the new normal. We can criticize ideas sharply. We can demand better performance from our elected officials. We can hold candidates accountable
for what they say and do. None of that requires racial invective or the casual dehumanization of people who look or worship differently.

Turning down the temperature starts with refusing to participate in the worst of it, and with calling it out when we see it, whether it comes from anonymous accounts, meme pages, or someone standing at the public comment microphone.

It also requires leadership at every level that models the difference between hard disagreement and contempt. When contempt becomes the currency of politics, the cost is paid by the very people who still believe public service can be honorable.

Fresno deserves better than this. California deserves better. America, at its best, has always been a nation of neighbors. We still can be. The alternative is a politics so poisoned that only the loudest and most reckless remain, while the rest of us quietly decide it is no longer worth the cost.

I am running because I still believe the cost is worth paying. But no one should have to pay it in the form of racism. We can demand higher standards of each other without abandoning the basic decency that makes self-government possible. That is not soft. It is the minimum required if we want this experiment in democracy to keep working for the next generation of Fresnans who still believe they belong here.

About the Author

Nav Gurm is an attorney and small business owner running for Fresno City Council District 7.

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