Last week, Warren Chan, former transition team member for Democratic New York City Councilman Justin Brannan, made headlines for a FaceBook comment he left on Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou’s page.

Chan’s comment received heavy criticism, and he was subsequently dismissed from Brannan’s transition team due to the backlash. “Warren’s comments are reprehensible and vile,” said Brannan. “We have removed him from the transition committee effective immediately.”

In a statement emailed to NextShark, Chan expressed interest in sharing his side of the incident and explained what prompted him to leave the comment on Niou’s page.

“First, I want to apologize to everyone that was offended by the profanity in my recent social media comment. The message I was trying to convey is that I feel our Asian elected officials do more for the Black community than the Asian community.

“Regarding to Niou’s facebook issue. Profanity is definitely wrong and again I want to apologize for my profanity. If a normal person received a profanity post in their facebook, they only thing they can do is to report the profanity to facebook’s moderator and there is nothing else they can do. However, Assemblywoman Niou is an elected official. She feels she is entitled to special treatment. Instead of just reporting a profanity to facebook moderator, Assemblywoman Niou decided to use her elected official’s power and connection to escalate this into an EPIC media outrage. She decides to call every reporter in her phonebook which she gotten from being an elected official to further her personal retaliation. She even further abuses her political power by politically pressuring a newly-elected official Justin Brannan to punish me. A normal person definitely would not have such privilege.

“Does this person deserve special power? A simple profanity can drive Assemblywoman Niou into such outrage just proof Niou has very low EQ. A low EQ person shouldn’t be allow to wield such a high level of political power. I urge the voters in the 65th Assembly district in the coming 2018 election to reconsider should a low EQ ‘Tyrant’ like her should continue to wield important political power.

“Again, I’m deeply sorry for my profanity social media post. However, councilman-elected Justin Brannan is innocent and has absolutely nothing to do with this. But he has taken a lot of heat from this media outrage because Assemblywoman Niou use her political power to drag Justin into this.

“I’m here to call on Assemblywoman Niou to apologize to Councilman-elected Justin Brannan for dragging him into this PR mess.”

He also released his statement in Chinese:

“首先， 我為我近日在社交媒體上的所講的不雅詞語向所有受到傷害的人作出 道歉。我只想表達“有一些亞裔官員幫助非裔人士多於我們亞裔人們 ”。

“關於牛議員面書上的言論，粗口是不應該存在在社交網上。我再次同 大家道謝， 我不應該在面書上講粗口。如果一個普通人在面書上被粗口騷擾， 唯一可以做的是向面書管理員投訴。但是牛議員覺得自己同普通人不 一樣，她可能覺得自己高人一等。她沒有用普通人的方式來處理面書 上的粗口問題，反而選擇利用自己是議員的身份和力量將這件粗口事 件提升為政治種族焦點話題。她也通過她議員的力量，把這件事發去 給紐約的所有媒體，來進行私人報復。更甚至利用自己的政治力量來 向新任的市議員 Justin Brannan施壓，從而對我進行報復。正常來說，一個普通人受 到粗口評論，是不可能可以發展到現在這個局面。難道就是因為她是 議員？她就可以受到特別的對待？

“一個粗口就可以讓牛議員失去理智，證明她的情商也不高。一個情商 低的人是不應該擁有這麼厲害的政治力量。我懇請第65選區的選民 在2018年的選舉中慎重考慮是否讓這樣一個情商低的暴君繼續當 選。

“最後，我再次深深地為我在社交網站上的不雅詞語道歉。我也再次重 申這件事是跟新任議員Justin Brannan完全沒有關係，他是無辜的。他在完全不知情的情況 下被很多媒體騷擾。在這次事件中，牛議員故意將Justin拉進 入這個事件中，令到他受到最多的傷害。

“我覺得牛議員應該要向新任 議員Justin道歉，不應該再將他牽涉到這個事件裡。”

Chan is the founder of the Chinese Political Club of Brooklyn and, as of 2016, the executive director of the Asian Community United Society, according to Bklyner.

Featured Image via FaceBook / (Left): Warren Chan | (Right): Yuh-Line Niou