¡JOEY VENTO, PUTREFACCIÓN EN INFIERNO!

Take note all you racists of the next generation:Joey Vento isn’t around to guide your way. All his racist BS against Mumia Abu-Jamal and HIspanics overall has been silenced forever courtesy of a massive heart attack today. That’s right the old bigot who kept getting a pass because he made cheesteaks is outta here. Vento’s death is important because it is a reminder that the old racist guard that still remembered when racism was king are going away and they are leaving a new guard with no foundations. Mumia is still alive and people are still fighting for him. Hispanics aren’t going anywhere and are growng in this country despite scumbags like Vento trying to tell them how. Vento lived in the kind of world he wanted. We will live in ours now, and it won’t be English only!

One People’s Project

Joey Vento, the bigoted owner of a cheesteak resturant known for his vitrolic attacks on the Hispanic connunity has died of a massive heart attack Thurday at the age of 71.

Vento was the founder and owner of Geno’s Steaks, a cheesteak eatery located 9th & Passyunk in South Philadelphia. Vento opened the resturant in 1966 and it eventually turned into a popular establishment.

What Vento is nationally known for is his endorsement of racist and right-wing campaigns. He was an ardent campaigner against Mumia Abu-Jamal, a local reporter whom many believe was wrongly convicted and sentenced to be executed for the shooting death of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. In June 2006, Vento saw headlines for two signs posted at Geno’s stating, “This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING ‘PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.”‘ Vento said he posted the signs due to concerns over the debate on immigration reform and the increasing number of people who couldn’t order in English, however it sparked a boycott of the eatery that continues to this day. It also made him a celebrity among the racist right, and in Sept. 2007, Vento spoke at an anti-immigration rally sponsored by the racist anti-immigration group Voice of the People on the Pennsylvania Statehouse steps in Harrisburg. Most of those he addressed were known white supremacists, including a contingent of the Keystone State “Skinheads” who were supporters of Vento.

During the New Year’s Day Mummer’s Parade in 2009, Vento participated in a performance titled “Aliens of an Illegal Kind” where he popped out of the top of a float labeled “Gewizno’s Steaks” with a “When ordering, speak English” sign. Vento waved a poster reading, “What?” and tossed fake cheesesteaks into the crowd. When an announcer shouted, “Uh-oh, here comes the Border Patrol!” others wearing Texas-sized cowboy hats and brandishing wooden rifles pretended to hold back a rioting crowd of “immigrants” from storming the border “fences.” As the “immigrants” burst forth, they traded in their country’s flag for an American flag, and a Mummer dressed as President-elect Barack Obama handed out Green Cards.

In 2010, Vento held a fundraising rally at Geno’s in support of the State of Arizona as the state government pushed what many saw as the legalization of racial profiling with its SB1070 “Papers Please” law, which was eventually scuttled in the courts.  He has also spoken at several tea party events in Philadelphia.