Arizona state schools Superintendent John Huppenthal (R) is facing mounting pressure to resign from his post after he admitted to authoring numerous incendiary posts across several political blogs starting in late 2010.
Last week, Huppenthal acknowledged that in 2010 he anonymously posted online commentary calling welfare recipients “lazy pigs” and accusing Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger of having “fed 16 million African-Americans into abortion mills.”
Although Huppenthal apologized for using “certain inflammatory words” in a statement to The Arizona Republic on Wednesday, he maintained that he participated in the blogs anonymously because he didn’t want his position as an elected official to obstruct a free and open exchange of ideas.
“I love talking about public policy, and I have a passion for engaging in debate,” Huppenthal explained to The Republic in an exclusive interview Wednesday. “I probably have 300,000 words out on the Internet, and 100 of them are getting me in trouble. When all of your missteps are there all together for people to see, it’s not a pretty picture.”
On Monday, Arizona television station KTVK revealed additional posts by Arizona’s top education leader in which he called for the end of Spanish-language media in the U.S. Huppenthal’s staff confirmed to KTVK on Monday that the comments were written by the superintendent.
“We all need to stomp out balkanization. No spanish radio stations, no spanish billboards, no spanish tv stations, no spanish newspapers,” Huppenthal, under the pseudonym Falcon9, wrote on the conservative blog Espresso Pundit a month after he was elected in 2010. “This is America, speak English.”
Huppenthal followed up on his post an hour later, responding to a commenter who jokingly proposed closing all ethnic restaurants.
“I don’t mind them selling Mexican food as long as the menus are mostly in English,” wrote Huppenthal, who is up for reelection this year. “And, I’m not being humorous or racist. A lot is at stake here.”
After Huppenthal’s admission Wednesday, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry responded by canceling plans to honor Huppenthal at its annual awards lunch Friday.
“The comments should not have been made and posted under any circumstance,” said Glenn Hamer, the group’s CEO and president. “We regret that this decision was necessary.”
This guy is all over youtube.com making horrible statements about just about anything and anybody. He is guilty of serial mouth-flashing and insulting talk from “Down with La Raza” to comparing people to Nazis. He should have been gone a long time ago. What is wrong with Arizona? Aren’t normal people there just a little embarrassed?
Don’t you love it when racists say “And I’m not being racist?” That’s a dead giveaway that here it comes!!!
I don’t know anything about this guy, or even care to be honest. However, I do find it funny that this is an article calling him a racist and giving this as one example:
– accusing Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger of having “fed 16 million African-Americans into abortion mills.”
Margaret Sanger fully endorsed eugenics for the betterment of the white race and society as a whole which is why she started PP to begin with. Can’t possibly get any more racist than that. She even gave speeches at KKK rallies.
Jackson, one more thing…am I to assume that you approve of all the other things this D-b has said? Those things that you failed to comment on in your clamor to nail Sangor are fairly important in the grand scheme of things. Do you seriously think, for instance, that any politician could get elected talking about the poor as this clown did? You are aware that he is the state superintendent of schools making these hideous statements? You have shown your true colors.
I doubt if you will find a happy home here.
Jackson, or whoever you are this week, you don’t know Jack about Margaret Sangor. In the first place, she has been dead for years. In the second place, do you know what motivated her?
I have never read a more ignorant statement. Read factual information.
Sangor was concerned over all women who literally had the life sapped out of them by frequent pregnancies. Many died early deaths because of these frequent pregnancies. In fact, her own mother had some ridiculous number of children and Sangor watched her die.
She tried to make birth control available so women didn’t have to go through that. Most women didn’t even know about birth control, much less how to use it. She operated during the Comstock Act where you couldn’t even publically talk about anything to do with sexual matters.
People of her class (adult, not the class of her childhood) did talk about things that might…operative word might be classified today as eugenics, to improve life for the poor and downtrodden. Limiting birth was part of that. Probably sterilization was included.
She wasn’t part of the KKK –not even close. Read and learn and stop making ignorant statements.
“am I to assume that you approve of all the other things this D-b has said?” – Not at all
“Those things that you failed to comment on in your clamor to nail Sangor…” – Those things about Sanger come from her own writings. I’m not ‘nailing’ her on anything, I just think it’s funny that a Huffington Post article would call this guy a racist and use an example of him talking negatively about a white supremacist as proof. That’s all.
“Do you seriously think, for instance, that any politician could get elected talking about the poor as this clown did?” – Sure, without a doubt. Charles Rangle just won his primary, anything is possible.
“You are aware that he is the state superintendent of schools making these hideous statements?” – I’m aware that he is some goofball politician in a state I don’t live in and has zero bearing on me or my family. Hence the reason I don’t really care about this idiot.
What true colors have I shown? That I don’t care about some idiot or think it’s funny to call someone a racist who said bad things about a white supremacist?
You are totally ignorant about Sangor and her place in history. How about a reference to her speaking at KKK rallies, in her own words. Otherwise, I am not even tgoing to talk to you about it other than to point out your ignorance on the subject and about the history of social progressives during her life time.
Well, you have a not so sterling track record on this blog.
@Moon-howler
I never said Margret Sanger was IN the KKK. She was a keynote speaker at KKK rallies, look it up, it’s all there. She even wrote about it in a book she wrote. Why do you think the KKK would invite her to be the main attraction at one of their rallies?
:In the second place, do you know what motivated her?” – Sure, in her very own words:
“We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
In November 1921 in the Birth Control Review (page 2) she wrote that the purpose in promoting birth control was “to create a race of thoroughbreds,”. Not because she “was concerned over all women who literally had the life sapped out of them by frequent pregnancies”.
In May of 1919 (page 12) she wrote in the Birth Control Review: “More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief aim of birth control”. Not “to improve life for the poor and downtrodden”.
In Pivot of Civilization Margret Sanger described immigrants and poor people as “…human weeds,’ ‘reckless breeders,’ ‘spawning… human beings who never should have been born.”
Over the years her legacy has been glossed over so much she is now some sort of hero. If I’m not mistaken PP still gives out an annual award they call “The Margret Sanger Award”. When one actually reads her very own words a less appealing character is born, so-to-speak.
Full references please. What birth control review?
Yes, she saw the cause and effect of the poor having unlimited children. They stayed poor.
You have something against thoroughbreds? I think that is the aim of most social progressives today. That’s the reason they work so hard for childrens health care and food programs.
I don’t think the term “racist” is appropriate here; if anything his posts indicate that he opposes racism.
Not that I’m entirely comfortable with his posts, but they reflect the stupid and irrational lazy conservatism in vogue nowadays more than they do ill will towards others.
Anyone who uses the term “flat screen TV” in a post as a measure of comfort is probably so far behind the times that they should just shut up, and be thankful that anyone employs them despite their being out of touch with modern life. On that basis alone I’m not comfortable that he’s a school superintendent.
@Moon-howler
“You are totally ignorant about Sangor and her place in history. How about a reference to her speaking at KKK rallies” – Did you not know she was invited to be a keynote speaker 13 times at various KKK rallies? I’m not sure how many she actually spoke at but there is record of her accepting and speaking at one for sure. Silverlake, N.J. in late 1921. She wrote about it, is that reference enough?
I will give you credit, she was one of the first women ever to not only write, but speak publicly about the need and importance of birth control. Unfortunately what you can’t hide about Margaret Sanger is her motivation behind pushing and speaking about what would have been a noble cause in her day or even today in my opinion. She was truly ahead of her time, but not for the noble and honorable reasons she is given credit for and for which women and men alike gleefully and with broad smiles on their face accept awards for in her name…. year after year after year.
You mock me with “you don’t know Jack about Margaret Sangor” and “You are totally ignorant about Sangor and her place in history”. However, if you knew so much about this woman then you would have read some of her writings and would know what I’m referencing and would be able to rebut my argument or show me where I may be misreading her own words (really? You never heard of Birth Control Review? Have you read any of her actual words in full context?). Her writings are well known and are freely available online and in our national archives.
If you are interested in reading her writings just go to: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/1998/ms998010.pdf
Yes, she was an advocate for birth control and birth control education. These reasons on the surface are no different than modern beliefs about birth control in general which is the reason why I believe she is held in such high regard on the issue (by the way I have no problem with birth control and I’m pro-choice).
What I have a problem with is the ‘myth’ that Margaret Sanger was some sort of hero that anyone should look up to. She had a horrific, racist, homophobic, elitist view of the poor, immigrants, gays, handicap and anyone else that doesn’t fit into her view of what an upstanding person of true good, certain level of wealth, race, genes and ethnicity should be and/or come from. Only those deemed (by her standards) are even fit enough to have children.
Here is a must read:
Published article. Source: The Birth Control Review, Library of Congress Microfilm 131:0099B. Margaret Sanger, “Birth Control and Racial Betterment,” Feb 1919. Just a warning, this is going to be a long post due to your request for me to provide you with accurate references… by the way, the title kinda says it all.
Don’t be an ignoramus. YOU read the must read carefully and then come back and tell me what Sangor is really saying.
You are taking something out of context, removing it from its historical and social perspective and applying 21st century social standards.
Remember that we are talking about the infancy stages of genetics also. If you think this essay is about white supremacy, you need a reading in the content areas lesson.
You should also read her autobiography while you are at it.
By the way, son, I have written several academic papers on Margaret Sanger, probably before you were born. You are aware that she herself was from an immigrant family (her father was Irish) and one of 11 children. Read her own words. You might learn something.
@Moon-howler
He did read her own words. As have I. And he’s right. She was a racist eugenicist.
He didn’t read her own words on the link he left because there are none.
I don’t believe for a minute she was a racist…no more than anyone else was back in those days. People wanted to improve the human condition, not purify the race lines. Basically she thought that if people controlled their reproduction, they would have healthier children, free of some of the defects associated with too many children and poverty. In other words, better health.
Genetics wasn’t what it is today. Let’s not evaluate things by 2014 standards. Let’s go back a century and look at what she believed. Frankly it doesn’t offend me at all. I don’t need to put a value judgment on it.
The only people who want to put a value judgement on her or her life are those who want to slam Planned Parenthood. Today’s planned Parenthood really has nothing to do with Sangor either.
I doubt if you have read her autobiography. This attack on Sangor is all about abortion. For the record, Sangor wasn’t a fan of abortion because of the danger to women. Abortion then wasn’t safe or legal.
Do you have disdain for that old slave holder from my ‘hood, Thomas Jefferson or do you cherry pick on that issue? Any time you step into another era, you have to overlook how many of the people lives within the mores of the times.
there is a strong argument that everyone is a eugenicist in that name me one person who doesn’t want healthier offspring.
What is genetic testing for horrible diseases like Tach Sachs other than eugenics with a kinder outlook.
He isn’t right as far as the other link he left me either. He either got it wrong or doesn’t know how to read.
Eugenics had a strong following in Europe and, to some extent, here from the late 19th century until the end of WWII. The Nazis were the most extreme practitioners and so muderously abused the concept that it fell entirely from respectable discourse. A lot of it was based on bogus racial sterotypes, but it also swept in hereditary maladies and conditions.
Using the concept, however, to attack Planned Parenthood because we can link eugenic arguments to Margaret Sanger is essentially a diversion. Evaluate PP on what it does now. Some of it is extremely controversial, especially for pro-Life folks, but those issues have nothing to do with this lady who lived a very long time ago.
I think the more interesting thing about Huppenthal’s views are his expressed attitudes toward HIspanics, a large number of whom populate the school system he administers. The “This is America, speak English” sentiment bespeaks an extraordinarily ignorant attitude fomr an educator. It reflects our own laziness and fear of outsiders, but has little to do with how one best accelerates assimilation. English has never been an official language here, but it is our unofficial lingua franca (sorry, but I don’t have an English word for that concept). It gets learned pretty quickly by newcomers simply by immersion. Nonetheless, having information and entertainment outlets in other languages enriches the overall linguistic capability of the country (something we are terribly weak in compared to most other nations) and provides a bridge or safety net for people transitioning between their mother culture and ours. This all has to be managed carefully in the education system, because one wants everyone to have proficiency in the dominant cultural language. However, to argue that Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Hindi, or German, or French) words should not be used anywhere is just wooden headed (Whats’ the English word for Chimichanga?). Of course, this is Arizona, this guy is apparently and elected official, and I suppose he’s following the yob-directed (and often successful) electoral strategy of people like Sheriff Joe Arpaio and, closer to home, Corey Stewart (in one of his previous electoral incarnations).
“Nonetheless, having information and entertainment outlets in other languages enriches the overall linguistic capability of the country”
What a positive spin you do put on a negative situation.
They fight about language to this day in Quebec – http://globalnews.ca/news/1236976/pq-leader-wants-to-clamp-down-on-bilingualism-in-quebec/
But we can try this experiment on a much larger scale … I think it’s going to consume school resources, especially in poorer districts, and ensure that more kids come out of school unprepared to function well.
The future of America, unless we turn course, is obvious. We break further into classes of haves and have-nots, with Spanish-speaking immigrants holding the menial jobs (as is the case now) and maintaining lower standards of living. It’ll be like the black-white divide 100 years ago. With no particular way out. Come to America, mop the floors and cut the lawns, and live off crumbs. Of course there’ll be opportunity for all in an abstract sense, but in reality we’ll have an increasingly teeming underclass and an increasingly defensive set of gringos at the top of the food chain. This model would have worked out had we been able to control how many people we let in. But we lack the collective will and are importing poverty and celebrating it as opportunity, as if we can magically generate wealth from the air.
It’s a model that no social planner would responsibly advocate. But our government stppped planning for the future quite a while back.
Too many liberals think that poverty + good will + positive thoughts = wealth.
And too many conservatives think that lower wages + lower taxes = a good time for all.
I was reading just the other day how Fairfax is enhancing the overall linguistic capability in their schools. To my cynical – or just realistic? – eye, it oooks like a portrait of a suburban area beginning to transform itself into an urban, low-income area that high earners will move out of and will will become a very different place. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/in-fairfax-county-kindergarten-classes-school-systems-future-comes-into-focus/2014/06/28/1ced10d2-f25e-11e3-914c-1fbd0614e2d4_story.html
Even the Washington Post’s best spin on this is that Schools officials believe that the challenges that come with a less-affluent and less-prepared population will exacerbate the system’s struggles with a widening achievement gap for minorities and ballooning class sizes.
But hey, let’s all hold hands, sing Kumbaya in multiple languages, and hope for the best.
Might as well since there are no alternative anyway.
“Meredith Hopkins, a third-year kindergarten teacher at Lynbrook, said she has never had a native English speaker in her classes.” Chew on that for a minute.
I did. She must have really pissed someone off and they want her to quit. Either that or she is simply not telling the truth.
Edelmira Moran, an Audubon resident and mother of a kindergartner at Hybla Valley, said she wished her child attended school with more affluent students who could inspire others to perform better.
“In other schools . . . they can see the other students and want to make a difference in themselves,” said Moran, 32, who came to the United States from Mexico 10 years ago. “In Hybla Valley, it’s 90 percent Hispanic. What the problem is, I think, is the style of life is all the same.”
That’s quite a discussion you’re having with yourself, there, Rick. I’ll not interrupt it except to observe on your last comment (#23) that quite a few people, at least of my age, went to schools in this country where the kids were of a very homogeneous racial and ethnic cross section. Ms. Moran’s complaint that “the style of life is all the same” seems irrelevant to any valid educational concern. I doubt she’d be complaining if everyone in the school were of northern European descent.
By the way, how does one say “chimichanga” in English?
When I was a kid a kid lived up the street named Constant Yang. He was from Japan which was considered very exotic for those times. Of course no one would associate with them because of “the rising sun.” It was still a little fresh on people’s minds, sorta like OBL is today. Every kid I went to school with was of northern European descent, I think. Constant wasn’t in my class.
Scout, I hope you did not miss the point that Ms. Moran came here from Mexico 10 years ago, and is giving you a ground-level inside look at a deminishing school system.
How is it diminishing. Rick?
Well, the article was quite clear about the fact that resources are being stretched too far in Fairfax. I think that I misspoke here associating Ms. Moran’s remarks to that, as she’s in Alexandria.
In general, from the Post’s copy : “Schools officials believe that the challenges that come with a less-affluent and less-prepared population will exacerbate the system’s struggles with a widening achievement gap for minorities and ballooning class sizes.”
A great deal of that problem doesn’t stem from immigration either. Parts of Fairfax are suffering from white flight.
Huh? That’s not from “immigration”? Who are the white flighters running from?
Again I tell you, I know 2 people on my block of 25 who left back around 2006-2007 because of what was happening in my (Prince William County) neighborhood. And I probably would have, if I had the money.
You don’t have to be white to do white flight. People you don’t want your kids to be influenced by. Gangs, bad schools, People of a different soci0-econimic class, …shall I go on?