SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: The Silence of Francesco Portelos and UFT Solidarity to Hurtful Speech Against Islam

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The Silence of Francesco Portelos and UFT Solidarity to Hurtful Speech Against Islam

I get home lat night from my 2nd job around 6 PM or so and see a notification that someone has posted on my Facebook page. It came from a Facebook "friend" "Raise Paras Pay," which surely can be one of Francesco Portelos' "independent" fronts.

All that was posted was one of Portelos' campaign flers that mainly accentuated himself amongst the other serfs of Solidarity. I thanked the person who had made the posting and of course was thankful that I was afforded a good laugh. I tagged Mindy Rosier and we both chuckled.

As I was examining this Facebook page, I came across a posting by "Raise Paras Pay" which was very, very disturbing. At worst it was pure unadulterated Islamaphobia and at best it was pure hate speech.

"When do we get the Catholic Holiday videos?"

Who exaclty wrote this, The Crack Team does not know. We do know that Portelos is friends with this person and surely has accepted support from this person. It again shows that those associated with Portelos have no compunction to take out their anger at religions other than those affiliated with the Christian faith.

Have we forgotten this? The post with the "dog whistle."

Here's what is bothersome to us here at SBSB. The above Facebook posting had been up for over a month now and Portelos, he who wishes to be a leader, had done nothing advocate it's removal nor even show his disdain in the comments section. Not until yesterday when I exposed the para did the shame fear of getting caught finally have the post removed.

Are we saying that Portelos directly condones such a insensitive comment as made by "Raise Paras Pay?" No. In our opinion Portelos is culpable by being silent. For not using his authority as a leader of UFT Solidarity (Remember, he is advocating higher pay for paras) for not speaking up or suggesting the post be removed immediately.

Weren't the citizens who lived near the camps just as culpable during the Holocaust while Jews were thrown into the ovens, the stench of rotting corpses, and the ashes of their bodies came down as if they were snow upon the villages that surrounded the camps? Their silence spoke volumes as well.

We here at SBSB are asking, nay, demanding that as someone that wants to lead teachers that Francesco Portelos repudiate the person who wrote this post as well as immediately disassociate himself from this Facebook "friend" post-haste.

This kind of speech should not be tolerated by anyone, at anytime. Especially from someone that claims to be a leader.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not sure this is insensitive to Muslims or Catholics but it does highlight differential treatment of various faiths (I guess).
We have enough accusations of 'insensitivity' and micro-aggressions (that is the latest and greatest word from the college campuses) without inventing or proposing hypersensitivities.

Anonymous said...

The important take away here is the common stance of Mr. Portelos in not properly vetting his associates or their behavior/verbalizations/written comments. It seems to me that he is too willing to "release the hounds" without consideration of the damage that he does to innocent bystanders. Worse still is his lack of accepting responsibility for the hurtful speech whether it comes across as discrimination,defamation or disparagement (which he is all too often involved in).

Francesco Portelos lacks the professional maturity to be an inclusive leader.

Pete Zucker said...

@7:04: I'm the last person to be politically correct, but that Facebook posting is disgusting and wrong. The OP could have lamented the teaching and/or supporting of religion in schools but chose to go for easy way, the war on Christmas/Christiananity we see on FOX News.

Being that a Solidarity groupie has already attacked Israel and with a comment that was disgusting makes one wonder what kind of "leadership" Portelos will offer and question the maturity of himself and his followers.

Anonymous said...

I have to agree that Solidarity under Portelos creates a disturbing picture of intolerance.

Pete Zucker said...

@8:26AM Not only does Portelos lack the professional maturity to be an inclusive leader, but just as importantly, and probably more so, he lacks the EMOTIONAL maturity to be any type of true leader.

Anonymous said...

Not a fan of that Port guy but see nothing wrong with the post please explain the outrage

Anonymous said...

In this blog or the posts, I do not see outrage towards Portelos as much as I do contempt. I would attribute the reaction to the frequency and consistency of the Portelos use of divisive tactics. His "divide to the lowest common denominator" strategy is problematic, in that, I am pretty sure that the lowest common denominator is one; isn't it?

Anonymous said...

I think Unity likes Portelos. Their base is secure. Portelos just divides the opposition.