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School Committee chairman resigns after appearing to mock ethnic names last night
By adamg on Thu, 10/22/2020 - 12:20pm
Loconto unfurling a flag to start meeting with Pledge of Allegiance.
The Herald reports Michael Loconto resigned as chairman of the School Committee this morning amid growing uproar over "hot mic" comments he made in the middle of last night's lengthy meeting on suspending the exam for exam schools for next year's class - and just a few hours after his vote on the exam question, which he called "the proudest moment I've had in my 18 years in public service."
Around 11 p.m., in a Zoom meeting that started shortly after 5 p.m. and would continue until almost 2 a.m., Loconto, a West Roxbury resident appointed to the committee by Mayor Walsh in 2014, was heard saying some nonsense syllables that appeared to be mocking African-American first names or Chinese last names. Both African-American and Chinese-American residents featured prominently during the meeting's roughly eight hours of public testimony.
I did surface the relevant piece of tape in which Loconto seems to mock commenters' names after executive secretary Elizabeth Sullivan reads them out. (Sorry for the delay — lot of news last night.)
A warning that the tape may offend some listeners: pic.twitter.com/E63j7q08WL— Max Larkin (@jmlarkin) October 22, 2020
Not long after, after getting texts from friends, Loconto apologized. He said he was talking about a book with somebody in his household and did not realize his Zoom microphone was on - but emphasized what he was saying had nothing to do with the meeting. He later declined to answer one resident's question about what book he was reading, and apologized again at the conclusion of the public testimony.
This morning, two city councilors - Andrea Campbell (Dorchester, Mattapan, Roslindale) and Annissa Essaibi-George - called for his immediate resignation.
Around 10:15 this morning, Loconto tweeted:
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
not surprised, that guy is a weirdo
he's got a very clean cut, but oddly unsettling gaze about him so I really can't say I'm surprised he'd be this vile.
I'd love to see his various Twitter and 4chan posts, because you just know he tosses a few back and has lulz making fun of jewish and african americans.
It was not my intent to mock anybody
My devotion to improving my table tennis game is sincere.
Say what?
We need the video!
Video clip in this story
https://www.wcvb.com/article/boston-school-committee-chairman-resigns-af...
What?
You mean you haven't read the classic children's book "Shineea, Shinaya, and Boo-Boo?"
It did kind of sound like that Denise Chaila song
But something tells me Mike Loconto (like the rest of you) hasn’t heard it.
Yeah, he had to step down after that. No question.
Making fun of names
Making fun of names is an old old bigot game.
In an era where we have a "Kayleigh" lying for the liar in chief, and playgrounds full of kids named "Maddesynn" and "Lakynn" and "Tundra" and "Jaxon", and sixty seven "creative" spellings of Michaela now entering the workforce it all strikes me as a bit obtuse.
Tundra?
That is actually a cool name. People who name their kid Jaxon should be examined.
Insensitive
This city’s long history will not change until the hate that is imbedded in privileged households stops and guys like that could keep there jobs. Unlearn to hate.
Insensitive, absolutely.
Ignorant, tone deaf, stupid too. But I think jumping to "hate" is a bridge too far.
Of course it is
Because we are not a hateful people.
Let's just call it light disrespect with a heaping dollop of systematic disdain.
True connoisseurs know
It's only Hate if it's produced in the Hate region of France.
Otherwise, it's just sparkling Prejudice.
He Forgot
“That’s not who I am.”
Another one of these bogus
Another one of these bogus apologies by a white person where the focus is on the people who were offended, rather than the things he said.
Is he related to the Karen in Charlestown who...
continually posts on 311 of all places, her disgust at the BLM sign in the neighborhood library branch and has lately escalated to threats of posting an All Lives Matter sign in the same spot.
I thought what was "in his
I thought what was "in his head and in his heart" was apparently a book he was talking about. Or is he just a reflexive liar on top of being racist? :)
A shining example of why
A shining example of why Boston is so popular on Saturday Night Live.
Such a tired trope.
I'm proud of the progress we're making.
What, specifically?
I'm not saying it doesn't exist...but when people talk about "the progress we're making" when such glaring evidence of continued problems exists, it seems appropriate to ask for equal evidence of "progress".
He's gone and on the bright side, he didn't Toobin
the meeting.
That's a bright side???
That's a bright side???
Toobin was my first thought,
too. I've been on Zoom calls for eight or ten hours a day since the lockdown started, and I have yet to experience anything as egregiously awful and self-owning.
I had one slightly red-faced-afterward moment early in the move to seven-days-a-week remote work, hosted a company-wide call without a virtual background, had a round mirror with a wide white frame behind me on the floor (awaiting re-hanging on another wall) that some colleagues said looked like a flipped-up toilet seat. It kinda did! Always a virtual background since.
Dogs yapping, kids screaming, toilets flushing, squawking backyard birds, some really bad hair days, sure. But blurting out a career-crimping racist aside, or schpanking it on-camera? Unbelievable.
Well, he didn't pass the test
Well, he didn't pass the test.
Loconto very close to Marty Walsh?
Why is this being labeled "anti-Asian" bigotry when the names mocked by Loconto, translated in the caption as "Shanea, Shania, Shanaynay" seem more Afrocentric than Asian? It's also intentionally misleading for the media to omit that it was Mayor Walsh himself who appointed School Committee Chairman Loconto and hired him as Staff Attorney in Walsh's favored Office of Labor Relations. Marty hired this guy (twice) but that fact is left out of the coverage? As for Loconto's lengthy Harvard employment, no surprise at his racial insensitivity considering this is the same school that boasted Elizabeth Warren as the "first woman of color" at Harvard Law.
Because context...
When he uttered those words, the School Committee was in the middle of receiving commentary from Chinese-speaking parents needing interpretation. The secretary was trying her best but still struggling to call those names (which is understandable), but clearly Loconto thought it funny...
Loconto, a West Roxbury
- the very post you're commenting on right now
If your beef is with "the media", but not this medium, maybe you should give us some links.
Idiots gonna idiot. Fish still gonna
Fish, shouting "Fauxcahontas" while accusing others of racism. Projection: it's just how weak, bigoted fuckheads like our President do.
I won't bother to repeat the long-established debunking of right-wing lies about Warren's assertion of her native heritage at Harvard, and whether it advanced her career there. Okay, one hint: if the first time your company hears about your ancestry is months after you were hired, I'm guessing it didn't help you get the job.
Never mind Trump's practically-from-birth record of naked racism. The Central Park Seven ad, which Trump has refused to renounce, is merely one smelly turd in the middle of a 50-year racism sandwich. Refusing to repudiate Charlottesville neo-Nazis is another. Trumpies: who do you think you're kidding?
Your reality is either fact-based or it's not. Life's too short to argue with the intellectually halt, the factually lame. Racists gonna racist, bigots gonna bigot: rational debate ain't gonna move 'em.
Chances are that Fish will be one of those sad old grandpas that the grandkids say, "So embarrassing, but he was born in a different time," and after he dies will be glad they don't have to deal with his retrograde bullshit at the holidays. Speaking from experience, nobody born in the 21st century will lovingly recall elders who were on the wrong side of history.
Yell at clouds while you can, Fish. Your time's just about up.
I want to know who hired you?
Was it Paul Blart or the food court manager?
Medication will help with your problem
You know, there ARE actually better ways of stimulating the beat of your shriveled heart than blowing racist dogwhistles until you're red in the face (as if you aren't always). Perhaps more to the point, if you stop being such a racist asshole all the time, there's a possibility that someone might call 911 when you have your inevitable stroke.
Those names
Aren't even that complicated or difficult to pronounce.
The kind of guy who thinks "Jennifer Hu" is a weird name has absolutely no place in public service in Boston.
Does Boston still feel
that we don’t need an elected School Committe?
The school comm chairman!
The school comm chairman! Outrageous. What a stupid moron!
We'll be seeing a skit about
We'll be seeing a skit about this on Saturday Night Live.