Dialogue of Slurs

“Chicano Studies, if it is to survive, must address the above issues immediately before our enemies gather their forces to destroy [it]. If left unresolved, we believe that not even our community will come to their rescue. The cancer must be removed before it spreads and kills the patient.”

More primo hate mongering. There‘s yet another piece, which -- enough of this stuff, already -- I won’t quote; it absurdly compares the experience of Latino children in U.S. school systems with the fate of Europe‘s Jews in WWII death camps. Strangely, it assigns blame for the latter’s fate not to the Nazis, but to Jews who allegedly cooperated with their persecutors.

Carreon writes like a nickel-plated wing nut, a classic crank. (His site also flaunts the urban legend about the Tijuana clinics that cut up babies to provide transplant organs for rich gringos. Leaving aside such questions as what use a 10-pound newborn‘s tiny heart is going to be to a sclerotic 230-pound Orange County stockbroker . . .) He’s a guy who, before the e-revolution, would have kept to his basement mimeograph, venting his outrage to an ever-shrinking mailing list. Now, of course, he can reach millions if he chooses to. There are many thousands like him out there, many of whom, naturally, are spewing anti-Latino bigotry to white racists.

So why bother mentioning him? Well, unlike whoever the Times piece was alluding to when it alleged that “The fact that Miller, Groveman and Soboroff are all Jewish has uncorked some private expressions of anti-Jewish feelings by some Latino leaders,” Carreon corks up neither his feelings nor his identity. And much as you might deplore his ignorance and prejudices, you have to admire the straightforwardness of this Raza Rev. Farrakhan. At least in comparison to the cowardice of whoever it was who told the Times the same thing, and whose identity Rohrlich and Olivo chose to shroud.

The last word on this entire mess really belongs to the man whose treatment inspired the community outcry. Superintendent Ruben Zacarias himself denied, during what could have been his last news conference as the LAUSD‘s top officer, all such allegations. As quoted by the Associated Press, Zacarias said:

“This is not about race or ethnicity. I would do everything possible to shut down anyone that makes an ethnic or religious or cultural or racial issue out of what’s happened.” I hope that he has Carreon‘s phone number.

Getting It First

Ten years since it died, I still miss the old Herald Examiner. Particularly earlier this month, because it wasn’t there to give the regnant Times an advance, front-page tweak for the outrageous Staples Center “marketing partnership” behind the cash-cow, door-stopper October 10 Sunday magazine.

Absent a second metro daily, reportage on this controversy was thorough, if generally slow. New Times‘ critique ran in its October 21 issue, followed by extensive reporting in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. But the Her-Ex memorial trophy for getting it first goes to Dan Turner of the weekly L.A. Business Journal. His analysis of the deal and its ramifications ran the day after the journalistic disgrace appeared. Later news reports failed to credit him.