SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Whitney Tilson Opened His Big Fat Mouth Again

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Whitney Tilson Opened His Big Fat Mouth Again


I wish to clarify something. In November I had written a post in which I exposed Whitney Tilson making an insensitive remark about Jews. I held back and didn't want to use the broad brush of calling him an anti-Semite. However, something came to light today and I must now say, that in my opinion, Whitney Tilson is anti-Semitic. I suggest that any Jews doing business with him cease immediately.

Why now do I bring this up? In today's convoluted, contradictory, mass email to his followers Whitney decided to whine and blame unions of the way the Parent Trigger at the McKinley Avenue Elementary in Compton, California was handled. Naturally there are many allegations and the California Attorney General's office is looking into the matter.

The Compton school district has asked parents to come to the school with ID to verify their signature on the petitions. As Whitney blabbered;
"Though there is no provision for this in the legislation, the Compton Unified School District sent a letter to all parents requiring them to come to the school – giving them only two windows on a single day – to “verify your signature on the Petition” and, worse yet, the letter says (in bold, underlined letters): “Please make sure to bring official photo identification (such as a California driver’s license”, as you will be asked to show identification before being provided a signature verification form.” The district is doing this to try to disenfranchise the mostly poor, Latino parents, many of which it knows work long hours and might not be able to take the time off, or might not have “official photo identification”, or might feel intimidated about showing up."
OK. Fine with me. He is entitled to his opinion. Even though he is wrong 99.99% of the time. But Whitney couldn't stop there. He had to show how smart he thinks he is, and how much he thinks he is there for boys and girls of color. Whitney blabbered on;
"This reminds me of the racist literacy tests that were used in the Deep South to prevent blacks from voting Here’s a “joke” I heard long ago about it: A black man courageously shows up to vote. The racist white poll monitor asks, “What’s the capital of North Dakota?” The man answers, “Bismark.” “What’s pi?” Answer: “3.14159265.” Finally, the poll monitor pulls out a copy of the History of the Peloponnesian War, written in the original ancient Greek, points to a sentence, and asks the man if he can read it. “Sure,” he replies. Amazed, the poll monitor asks what it says. Answer: “This is one black man who isn’t going to vote today.”
Nice. Very nice. So you choose to analogize what is happening in Compton with a crude, racist joke? Let's explain what this is not right, and why this is dangerous.

First of all Whitney, you could have just said this reminds you have literacy tests that were given in the South. We didn't need you to show how smart you think you are by not only sharing this joke with us, but you didn't need to add a link to Wikipedia explaining what literacy tests were. We get it. Beleive it or not there are a lot of people out there as smart, if not smarter than you.

But what you truly have done is show what you are made of. That you feel that you are better than people of color and that you need to be patronizing and condescending. The fact that you still remember this joke, as you said from a long time ago, shows the crack team here at SBSB that chances are you still tell it and laugh heartily when you tell it and your 5th Ave cocktail parties. As mentioned before about Cathie Black's slip of the lip, jokes like these have an amount of truth. Remember, this is what Mr Spock said.

As much as you think you are helping, or whatever it is you are doing, you still put yourself on a higher plain than people of color, and Jews as well. You have no true life need for such people. People of color are only props for you to make yourself look good, to give you some validation that you are so desperately lacking.

You Whitney Tilson, in my honest, humble opinion are a racist. One does not need to be an "Archie Bunker" to be bigoted, to be a racist, to stereotype. But you are a bigot, you are a racist, and you are an anti-Semite.

I look forward to the day Whitney when you are finally nailed for some financial misdeeds and spend your time in gen pop being traded about for a pack of Newports.

12 comments:

Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene said...

The corporate astroturf group, Parent Revolution, keeps insisting that their nefarious signature gathering campaign needed no verification by a neutral public source. Given that their wealthy Executive Director, Ben Austin, isn't just a pariah in Los Angeles, he has a record of questionable activities, we can't trust them whatsoever.

Austin was recently investigated for serious conflict of interest (Case # 2010-36) by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission for nearly a year. Word on the street was that fellow privatization pusher Mayor Villaraigosa made a phone call and the investigation was swept under the rug.

http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2009/12/evidence-against-mr-ben-austin-of-la.html

The foppish millionaire from Benedict Canyon was also involved in a scandal with Rocky Delgadillo's office that had all but ruined his political career until his childhood friend and fellow millionaire Marco Petruzzi set Austin up with a lucrative consulting gig with Green Dot Public [sic] Schools.

That allowed Austin to shed his scandal ridden past and remake himself by taking over and renaming Steve Barr's LAPU. With assistance of fellow reactionaries Schwarzenegger and Romero, got the corporate charter trigger law passed, guaranteeing himself and Romero future employment privatizing schools for the Broad/Gates/Walton Triumvirate.

http://dailycensored.com/2010/04/24/political-patronage-for-green-dot-public-schools-chief-propagandist/

The McKinley process was shot through with malfeasance and deceit. Here are some posts discussing it:

http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2010/12/update-on-veracity-of-mckinley-parents.html

http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2010/12/astroturf-spawns-ever-more-astroturf.html

http://rdsathene.blogspot.com/2011/01/ben-austin-channels-sarah-palin.html

Anonymous said...

Fellas,
Compton Unified - yes, and its unions - didn't like the petition, so it unilaterally decided to declare it invalid. This is illegal, on its face. Period. To make parents have to meet any other standard, whether it's "reasonable" or not, is against the freakin' law - what part of that don't we get? I know that Lenin said that whatever helps the class war is moral, but we ain't run by Lenin, we're run by law. And finally, the law is on the side of parents. When will YOU guys get on the side of parents and the kids?
Your allegedly reactionary, allegedly boobish friend,
Bill Grundfest

Anonymous said...

oh, one more thing - can we stop with the "Nazi" thing... a guy repeats an unfunny, tone-deaf, offensive joke - it doesn't make him a Nazi... Nazi are the ones who murdered 6 million people... and for everybody to use the label for joke-isms is MORE offensive than the dumb joke, because it trivializes the murder of those 6 million, so can we stop it please?
Your STILL allegedly reactionary (not even sure what that means), Union-hating, public employee-bashing, and whatever else you've accused me of, buddy,
Bill Grundfest

CarolineSF said...

Speaking from California, the Parent Trigger law is NOT on the side of parents or children. It's on the side of charter operators. Parents did not launch or run this effort in Compton; the organization Parent Revolution, started and run by charter operators and funded by billionaires and corporate titans, ran it. Parent Revolution, by its supporters' own account, decided to target a school, looked around the state for a vulnerable one, and sent paid organizers out to cold-call door-to-door in search of McKinley parents.

That's not the way a grassroots operation from within the school community operates, need I point out.

The law is supposed to allow parents to choose among four options for restarting their school, but Parent Revolution allowed parents only one option in the Compton Parent Trigger -- charterizing, with the charter operator pre-selected by Parent Revolution.

Even if one were naive enough to assume benign intent in the creation of the law, THIS is not the way it's supposed to operate.

As for Compton's clumsy effort to verify the signatures -- should a public agency actually hand the keys to its school over to a private operator based on receipt of an unverified list of names? Most prudent observers wouild not agree.

The poorly written Parent Trigger law does not mention a thing about verifying petition signatures, so Compton officials were on their own involving this. Caught by surprise, in the media spotlight and without guidance, they made a poor decision about a verification process. They relented under pressure, and the status of the verification question is currently unknown.

CarolineSF said...

Follow-up: Here's a blog post summary and update on the Parent Trigger.


http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2011/02/grannan-powerful-parent-trigger.html

Anonymous said...

This post is silly in the extreme. That joke is NOT racist in any way whatsoever. It's an old classic joke told by black people whose WHOLE POINT was to ridicule the racist Southerners who instituted literacy tests.

Pete Zucker said...

It was racist. The same way the comment he made about Jews and education shows Whitney is an anti-Semite.

Anonymous said...

What's supposedly racist about it? He's ridiculing the Compton authorities by associating them with racist white thugs who stacked the deck against minorities. He's clearly against those racist white thugs.

Also, it's a real stretch to say that associating Jews with being educated is an "anti-Semite."

Pete Zucker said...

I don't go off half-cocked (oops! pardon the pun!) as Whitney does. Before I lay fingers to keyboard I check out facts. I spoke and consulted with many African-Americans and all have said that to use this "joke" as an example does show insensitivity, is condescending, is patronizing, bigoted, and racist. The joke did not need to be used.

As far as Whiteny's comments about Jews and education, it is no different than thinking all Jews are good in business, all Jews have big noses, all Jews horde money. It is stereotyping Jews. Whitney also shows is ignorance in claiming that the Jewish pride in education goes back 4,000 years. Just claim shows Whitney's ignorance.

I will say it again. Whitney Tilson is anti-Semitic, and a racist.

Anonymous said...

You must be the biggest moron on the face of this earth. The joke is racist!? What?! Are you really a teacher or a patient in a mental institution?! He is clearly depicting an anecdote of an INTELLIGENT black person and an UNFAIR system.

Not only a moron, but you are also a liar. You checked with Afro-Americans about this?! Ha! What a lie! If this is true then the people you checked with are also morons (just like you) because in this story he is raising awareness of the unfairness of the system and the intelligence of black people. You moron!

Furthermore, you are clearly a bigot, a hater and an asshole! To post pictures of a person constantly as you do in an offensive way just proves me right. Go seek help!

If you are really a teacher, that explains why American education is going down the drain!

Pete Zucker said...

You must be a buddy of Whitney that he met on the Interstate.

Whitney is a racist. And an anti-Semite. And a liar.

Anonymous said...

Not I'm not. I don't have to be a buddy of anyone to make a sane comment and point out an asshole. You on the other hand, bigot imbecile, must have it in for reasons I don't dare imagine. That's your problem and I don't care. I do take offense, however, of anyone who hides behind big words such as "racism" and "antisemitism", pretends to understand their meaning and to speak for the people who suffered from them. Asshole!