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Whitewash in South Philly

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95 comments

Whitewash in South Philly

POSTED: Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 8:29 PM

You'll be shocked, shocked to learn that the school's district's long-awaited report on racial violence against Asian students in South Philly High is a complete joke:

Giles' report did not assign blame to school officials, but it did make recommendations for change, including banning hoodies at school, providing students with an anonymous tipline to report violence, and placing sufficient cameras at South Philadelphia High School. Some of the suggested changes, such as putting more cameras in place, have already been made.

Although students and community members say there has long been violence against immigrant students, Giles was directed to only investigate the incidents of Dec. 2 and 3, he said. He termed his work "a general overview and not a specific fact-finding undertaking as to individual student culpability."

And the punchline is still Arlene Ackerman:

Both Giles and Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said that it was important to focus on the future, not the past.

"It would take us another 10 years to find out all the intricacies of what happened," Ackerman said at a news conference. "Let's move forward."

There's your mantra for the 2010s, people: "Let's move forward." The CEOs who gambled and lost billions of dollars of our money on 4 a.m. casino bets are still employed and getting huge bonuses because, well, um, "Let's move forward!" Our highest officials can flagrantly disregard established laws and order waterboarding and other forms of torture, dragging America's good name through the muck, but seriously, nothing to see here, folks..."Let's move forward!" A racially motivated mob can rampage through a high school in Philadelphia for two days, amid a much longer climate of violence and harassment, even from adult staffers, and not only is no one from the school district accountable but none of the perps is even arrested.

Let's move forward!

No one could get away with this in his or her own life: Could you imagine having an affair or losing your kid in the mall for a couple of hours and telling your spouse nothing beyond "let's move forward!"? Good luck with that. But in our public life, no accountability is demanded of anyone. And people wonder why our public life keeps getting progresively more appalling.

Will Bunch @ 8:29 PM  Permalink | 95 comments
95 comments
Comments  (95)
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:05 AM, 02/24/2010
    Any one have popcorn to eat while RG and TPS go at each other?
    Timmy
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:22 AM, 02/24/2010
    You people are morons - black kids jumped asian kids because they were asian and the black Ackerman and the black retired judge are trying to make it go away - you can deflect about the cops, corporate execs, lincoln, bush, obama, nobama, rebama, momama, it doesnt matter the truth is that this is exactly the same - if you are ok with it then shut the hell up and dont throw stones when its done against you!!! Its that simple
    jj12
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:48 AM, 02/24/2010
    In the city of America's history, of every conceivable museum, institute, gallery, memorial, statuary, mural and artistic installation, let's move forward, let bygones be bygones? Is Black History month here because there was institutionalized amnesia? How about African American Future month? And now, you want to export your do nothing, the police are the institutional racist club of Black political subjugation. It won't play. IT WAS A RACE RIOT. You know, the kind of thing you don't want to happen to your ethnic group anymore. Well, no one else wants it to happen again, in this city, anymore, to anyone. That means, not only in the future, will you make a strong stand against it and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law the violators, no matter who they are. And in the future, we will not hear about a historical monograph when what we want is a criminal investigation, maybe by a grand jury, resulting in prosecutions and convictions. Crime must be punished and that means that yes, you have to review the facts, of past, but not ancient, behavior. What kind of pseudo intellectual misdirection do you think you can arrange to draw attention away from having these events investigated. Because they are in the past. You must think this city is as stupid as the people who see snow in the middle of winter and claim there can not be global warming in one region of the globe that actually has four seasons, one of them with cold and ice and snow. All prosecutions and investigations are of past events, Ms Ackerman, they are not live reality Mtv shows.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:08 AM, 02/24/2010
    If I were in the asian community, I would hire someone who is loud and talks a whole bunch of nothing, call him a reverend so he gets significant tax breaks, then threaten the school with racial lawsuits, then threaten the school districts sources of income with racial lawsuits, then demand the firing of Ackerman and that the kids are expelled!!! Thats progress
    jj12
  • Comment removed.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:27 AM, 02/24/2010
    Agreed. This is an effort by gutless Philadelphia Authorities to address the problem, and to sweep it under the rug. You have to wonder about the racial overtones, and looks closely at the "commission" that investigated. Let's move forward? Let's start by FIRING every public official involved or linked to the incident -- Comissioners, teachers, cops, community activists. When we show we are SERIOUS about responsibility, then we'll get it.
    ChrisWZD
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:49 AM, 02/24/2010
    accountability? from baby boomers? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA they let nixon get away with watergate... reagan get away with iran contra (selling weapons to iran that were used to murder 268 marines in beirut. semper fie ollie north...who speaking of which was a convicted felon and drug dealer who ALSO got off, as did all the iran contra traitors... george hw bush - iraq gate, s and l scandal, iran contra, too many to list clinton - put more americans in prison than any president before him, consolidated the media into one final oligarchy, and he got away with everything EXCEPT oral sex cheney got away with everything...in baby boomer america you can get away with murder and war crimes...just don;t have sex for god's sake or you WILL be held accountable!!!
    pyg
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 5:36 AM, 02/24/2010
    Slavery? Let's move forward. Civil Rights? Let's move forward. Hate crimes? Let's move forward.
    legend1
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 6:37 AM, 02/24/2010
    The racial attacks in Philly were a symptom of a cultural disease. The disease is self healing. The Philadelphia Asian community will be fine. Immigrant Asian families will partake in the American dream within one generation because they care about their children and sacrifice their own personal pleasure so that their children can lead a better life. The AA community in Philly is stagnant, depraved, and doomed to suffer for generations because their predominant culture lacks the ability to act now for benefit in the future. That's not to say that all AAs suffer this depravity. There are fantastic parents that work hard and sacrifice for their children. But they are truly "a minority". Could it be time to reintroduce the social phenomenon of shame? It seems to be lost.
    Mr. Smith
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 6:49 AM, 02/24/2010
    Bygones.
    potus
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:42 AM, 02/24/2010
    Ban hoodies? How about banning the thugs.
    Mark Glaeser
  • Comment removed.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:57 AM, 02/24/2010
    that is just awful. ackerman is poison in this district.
    brendancalling
  • Comment removed.
  • Comment removed.


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Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.

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