Who said the following?
“[Illegal Hispanics] are killing, like, 25 of us a day … molesting about eight children a day … All we’re getting is drug dealers and murderers.”
“These illegal invaders … are not the kind of immigrants our grandparents were … They knew to be successful in America, you have to speak English.”
“You come here, pop a baby, pick it up and take it back to Mexico.”
“These people are coming here—they don’t want to assimilate; they want us to learn their language and their culture … stay there.”
“Every other group that came in here, they knew their trick to success was speaking our language.”
The answer is: Joey Vento, the owner of Geno’s Cheesesteaks in South Philadelphia. Vento first achieved fame outside the city of brotherly love by posting a sign saying, “THIS IS AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING ‘SPEAK ENGLISH”. Geno’s Cheesesteaks sits on the corner of Passyunk and 9th, kitty-corner from Pat’s King of Steaks. Every visiting politician makes a stop at Pat’s and Geno’s. John Kerry did real damage to his campaign when he visited Pat’s and attempted to get swiss cheese on his steak. You can get American, provolone, or cheeze whiz, but you cannot get swiss. If you try to get swiss, people think you are some kind of elitist, wind-surfing, Frenchman. Yous can complain about it, but this is Philly and people don’t trust anyone that wants swiss cheese on their cheesesteak.
Of course, Joey Vento only recently revealed himself to be a raving racist. The Philly Weekly describes the situation:
On Oct. 1 GOP front-running presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, came to our city.
On the way to a fundraising event, he stopped by Geno’s Steaks at Ninth and Passyunk, and embraced Joey Vento, the biggest symbol of ignorance, intolerance and immigrant-bashing in the U.S. today.
Vento’s thinly disguised abhorrence of brown people—don’t just take our word for it; his vile screeds are available with the simplest of searches on YouTube for all to see—has been an ongoing embarrassment to the city and to the brotherly love we allegedly stand for.
How did Guiliani embrace this man?
“Imagine the outrage if some Southern conservative—Trent Lott, say—had made a pilgrimage to an unapologetically rebel-flagged sort like Vento,” wrote former Inquirer reporter Michael Currie Schaffer in an eloquent and persuasive piece for The New Republic online last week. “But Giuliani, whose New York background serves as a surprisingly effective shield against the charges of intolerance that once punctuated his mayoral administration, managed to make the trip looking less like an actual bigot than a shameless panderer. And once he got there, he lived up to it. ‘Whenever I’m at Geno’s, I order in English,’ Giuliani told a local TV reporter. If he’s lucky, GOP voters in South Carolina caught glimpses of Vento’s [Confederate flag] tattoos as the pair mugged for cameras.”
Vento, says Schaffer, once told a reporter that Mexicans carry disease into the U.S. because they “play and drink out of the same water.”
Following Giuliani’s appearance at Geno’s, Vento went on the Fox News Channel and endorsed the former New York mayor for president.
The Giuliani campaign quickly posted the cheesesteak stand owner’s endorsement of their candidate on their official YouTube campaign site.
Got that?
And perhaps the saddest thing of all is the response of Reneé Amoore, the Deputy Chair of the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee…and an African-American woman:
“I think it’s a good thing because the politicians need to—whether they’re on the R side or the D side—they need to be out in the community, and too many times they just deal with fundraisers. Giuliani will go anywhere at any time, and he’s always up for controversy. That’s just who he is and what he’s about, and he’ll deal with anything and everything, and I think people have seen that since 9/11—even before 9/11—so it wasn’t an issue for him. Sometimes he takes on stuff so people know he has no problem dealing with any issue. And I think that’s what makes him so popular. I wasn’t happy that my leading Republican candidates didn’t attend Tavis Smiley’s forum, for example, but then Giuliani put something out to say why he didn’t attend, so he’ll take it on where other folks didn’t respond at all. I think he was there, and he wanted people to know how he felt, and he’s just straight up like that. He doesn’t hide stuff real well at all. Even with his family stuff, he made it real clear where he was with that. He puts it out there, and he moves ahead and he moves on. And it’s either you like him or you don’t. I just happen to like him.”
So who didn’t know that the entire Republican machine is built on racism. Been that way since Reagan and will likely remain that way in the future. What else have they got? Something like, HELP US MAKE THE RICH RICHER AND THE CRUMBS FALLING OFF THEIR PLATES WILL BE LARGER. Well, we listened to that line of bullshit for the past seven years, and longer, and the size of the crumbs remained the same.
Different Era, Same Hate. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.
Still waiting for Congress to counter-act it…
Hi Manny, the language of hate, the sickness of prejudice never changes does it…like an unending tide that washes from one generation to the next looking for old or new victims to hate, to blame.
hi friend. it’s not like we didn’t have warnings, we new they were going to go after the migrant community way before they ramped up the fire. I just wish there was more solidarity from lawmakers.
While they’re at it, his handlers should make sure he stops by Maurice Bessinger’s Piggly Wiggly on his next swing through South Carolina.
That’d really be “putting it out there,” now wouldn’t it, Renee? Wonder if you’d continue to “just happen to like him” after that?
“I just happen to like him.” Really, is there anything more weak and repellent than that? “Sure, he condones, promotes, and exploits vicious race hatred, but I just happen to like him.” So there! When it comes to who we “happen to like” [and support!], we don’t need no stinking reasons! –Conversely, by implication, anybody who is appalled by this is not somebody with principled objections to morally repellent stances … no, that person just happens not to like him. That’s all it comes down to.
Over and over we hear Repubs harping on the taking of responsibility. How about taking responsibility for one’s own positions — one’s “likes and dislikes”, if you will? She speaks as if her support for Giuliani were just some kind of state that descended upon her like the Holy Spirit. No reasons. Can’t help it, so there’s nothing to defend. I just happen to like him. That’s all there is to say, and that should satisfy anyone.
Sorry for fixating on what may seem to many to be a secondary issue.
clearly the unanswered primary consideration is what kind of steak did Guiliani order.
Sorry. “Piggie Park” is the name of Bessinger’s notorious (at least in SC) barbecue chain. “Piggly Wiggly” is, of course, the grocery store chain that, at the time of the news story linked, was continuing to carry his BBQ sauce.
Come to think of it … why not have Rudy (and the other Repub candidates) cover both? Pull into Piggie Park for some barbecue and pro-Confederate literature, then swing by a Piggly Wiggly to pick up a bottle of Maurice’s famous sauce for good measure?
I like him, I really really like him…yeah that reasoning struck me also as being as stupid as Rudy himself. Her long winded explanation that wasn’t certainly didn’t address the issue but heck if you like him well so what. What’s a little sick racism between friends eh..proving his staff sounds as idiotic as Rudy himself.