The Pasadena Weekly Sticks Its Foot In Its Mouth, Again

[first published: September 4, 2008]

Since no one's managed to shut me down, yet, I might as well get on with it.

So many recent issues of the Pasadena Weekly have contained half-truths and outright lies about PUSD, I could be writing a lot more columns just to keep up with them. None of this is acceptable, and it is fair to say that this publication abandoned their journalistic ethics somewhere down on Route 66.

But out of all of the ugliness issuing forth from "our" Pasadena Weekly recently, nothing rang more false [nor contained such hidden racism], than this sanctimonious article:

Hate by the numbers
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/hate_by_the_numbers/6246/
Black/brown tensions likely to rise as hate crimes climb across the board
By Andre Coleman and Kevin Uhrich
08/07/2008

First of all, lets check out the subject(s) of this article: Black/brown participation in hate crimes.

Black/Brown participation? Come on!

This paper has a lot of nerve. For years they have been the perpetrators of hate crimes against black/brown people, by their nasty, biased, right-wing extremist sourced, untrue and even profane, coverage of PUSD - schools filled with black and brown children!

When you point right-wing extremist sourced misinformation the way of children in the pages of your paper, thats called Hate!

I wrote here about the double-standards for right wing hate speech in general, an article by Glenn Greenwald.

excerpts:
"...hate-speech needs to be given a correct label, and that label is "Violence":

"Violence of the tongue is very real—sharper than any knife, wounding and creating bitterness that only the grace of God can heal."
- Mother Theresa

....our local media focuses on "gang violence" - and in the process, condemns people of color.

There is so much hate and vulgarity in the very blogs that our media link to and source,
imagine for one second if these blogs were run by Black Power groups or Latino activist groups, the hate on them would be IMMEDIATELY censored.

Yet the fact that hate-blogging is a white, middle class phenomena, protects them."

I could list more articles in the Pasadena Weekly sourced by Rene Amy, but here is an especially nasty one.

This article openly chronicles and applauds Rene Amy's dirty trick victory over Dr. Percy Clark, former superintendent of PUSD:

Clark takes himself out of the running for Cleveland schools CEO post
By André Coleman

excerpt:

"Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Percy Clark's harshest critic may be responsible for Clark staying in Pasadena, at least for the time being.

Clark has withdrawn his name as a candidate for the CEO position at the Cleveland Municipal School District after members of a search team there learned of a sex and drug scandal involving Clark when he worked in the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township in Indianapolis.

Rene Amy, who runs an Internet listserve on education, said he contacted the Cleveland Plain Dealer after reading stories in that paper about Clark's candidacy and told a reporter where to find stories about incidents that cost Clark his superintendent's position in Lawrence Township.

"I guess I should have kept my little mouth shut," Amy said."

[are Rene Amy and the Pasadena Weekly "having fun" here? at the sake of our public schools? Hoo-yah?]