Occupy LA protesters demonstrated on the steps of LA Unified School District headquarters Monday, speaking out against the district’s dismissal of a substitute teacher who made public comments deemed anti-Semitic remarks at a recent protest.
The teacher, Patricia McAllister, spoke out at a recent Occupy LA protest, saying the Jews run the nation’s banking infrastructure and should be forced to leave the U.S.
“I think that the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and our Federal Reserve, which is not run by the federal government — they need to be run out of this country,” McAllister said in the video by Reason.tv, a Libertarian-leaning news organization.
McAllister stood by her words Tuesday, speaking with KTLA 5. When it was suggested that her statement was racist, she refused to back down.
“It is not racist, it’s the truth,” McAllister said. “Anyone who speaks against the Jews are called racists nowadays.”
McAllister is black. When suggested that someone might be considered racist if making similar comments about African-Americans, she refused to agree.
“If we were destroying this nation, they’d better say something and take us down with it,” she said.
Occupy LA did not support McAllister’s comments weren’t endorsed by Occupy LA or United Teachers of Los Angeles — the labor union representing the city’s educators.
District officials released a statement supporting McAllister’s freedom of speech, but saying the district would “never stand for behavior that is intolerant, disrespectful or discriminatory.”
McAllister’s status as a substitute teacher makes her an at-will employee and she has been relieved of her duty, officials said.
The teachers’ union joined Occupy La in calling on the district’s Board of Education to re-hire 1,200 teachers and other workers. The demonstrators said they are looking to start a new occupation site at LAUSD headquarters to make sure their demands are met.
The union protested district-wide budget cuts, ending in widespread layoffs of teachers and other personnel.
District officials said that 800 of the 1,200 employees that were originally laid off have already been rehired.
(Source: KTLA)
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10 Responses
The mainstream media took great pleasure in reporting some racist fringe elements in the tea party lets see how much play this story gets
Wow! – anti-Semitism in the “medinah shel chesed”?!?
Who woulda believed it?!?
(Keep a bag packed, brothers and sisters.)
If these comments are indeed true, then the reason is: Jews are qualified to run the banks. Blacks are not. Period.
Jews have, for centuries, tried to acclimate to every adverse situation. Blacks have, for centuries, done nothing but complain and agitate.
Let them just give some honest effort and maybe they can run a bank or two as well.
I happened to have watched the video with this lady. Very disappointing how a public school teacher believes…
It will be an interesting case since she made the statements in a non-work environment, and as a government employee, she has a “free speech” right (private sector is free to fire people for political reasons, government isn’t). The union is unlikely to support her, but she might find a private rights group (e.g. ACLU). If she identified herself as a public school teacher in making the statements, she is more vulnerable. The issue of whether “Hate speech” is protected hasn’t been fully litigated in the US, so its unknown what it will rule.
Nothing new and not anti semitic.
The KING lives on …oih vey
a friend of mine went to the occupy wall street in ny and he told everybody there were anti semitic
#5:
It will be very interesting indeed to see how this turns out. I would expect those who decried the discipline of teachers who make disparaging comments on facebook about gays to also decry this discipline, but I’m not hopeful that many will be that principled.
@galicianer
“…then the reason is: Jews are qualified to run the banks. Blacks are not. Period. Jews have, for centuries, tried to acclimate to every adverse situation. Blacks have, for centuries, done nothing but complain and agitate.”
1) I know plenty of Jews who aren’t qualified to run a bank (myself included) and plenty of Black who are.
2) Up until about 50 years ago, Blacks in a large part of the US were denied many civil rights. 150 years ago, we were just coming out of a civil war fought largely due to slavery. You’re right! They did complain and agitate. Apparently, they didn’t like slavery and Jim Crow laws.
In general, statements about “the Jews” and “the Blacks” are either so universal as to be useless or driven by an underlying prejudice.