Nadia Pflaum: Scourge of KC's Black Community

I've seen a lot of things in this town but I never thought I would see the day when a writer from The Pitch would stand up for a Star staffer.

In her latest opus, Nadia "last call" Pflaum wonders about Eastside murders from the plush downtown digs of The Pitch offices.

Normally, I think it's a good thing when anyone notices the murder rate East of Troost but her article (like nearly all white people) was so condescending and high minded that it barely captured the tragedy of the carnage that's going on in this town.

Luckily (Thank you Internets and Al Gore) there has already been a response to her screed and one of the subjects of her piece (te-he) has some facts he'd like to clear up. Alonzo Washington wrote the following earlier today:

First let's deal with all the mistakes in the report that relate to me. She said that Ron Hunt and I did a snitching campaign to together. False! Ron Hunt and I have not done a joint project together in over a year. In fact Ron Hunt does not like the word snitch. I guess it has something to do with his jail time. She said I was quiet about the local homicides until I launched my Myspace Tip Page. False again! I have produced PSA's, T-shirts and fliers asking for people to come forward with information about local homicides. I was featured on America's Most Wanted regarding my tips campaign. I did a voice strike (I did not speak) for a week for people to give tips. Moreover, I handed out fliers with family members of homicide victims for a entire month for tips about homicides. This Nadia tramp must be blind and deaf.

For me, the most important line in the article was the following: "If this piece of protein had been in Shultz's position, it would have been pissed at being called racist for failing to heap praise on Washington. Since when are the sources of tips identified in crime stories? Couldn't that be a little bit dangerous?"

Let's forget for a moment that Washington didn't want praise, just not to be left out of a story of a murder case THAT HE HELPED TO SOLVE.

In that one passage she not only defends a Star reporter who clearly made a mistake and then made good on it later but also proves that she understands very little about Washington's work or the difference between a source and a community leader. She's not concerned about Washington's safety, she's sticking up for a fellow member of the cesspool press pool.

I have no idea why they fired all of the Black people who work at The Pitch less than a year ago or why the place is whiter than an emo band but it's clear that they need to find someone who can relate to the community they're trying (and failing) to cover.

Let's look at Pflaum's work. In the past year, given she's burned more people in KC's Black community than an African-American woman.

Here's the damage:

She hassled a Black UMKC Student with a stereotypical portrayal that would make any college Republican happy.

Then she depicted Richard Tolbert as nothing but a slumlord while glossing over more than 30 years of community service the guy has given to this town.

Finally, to keep her hipster cred she proved that the only Black people she's comfortable with are rappers. A PR piece dedicated to some gimmicky local rappers who extol the virtues of fried chicken and the spork is the closest thing she could muster that wasn't openly hostile to Black folks in KC.

Given all of these facts, I'm not surprised that Washington says that he isn't giving any quotes to the king of this town's free newspapers.

The corporate takeover at the Pitch is complete now that they've thrown their lot in with The Star, provide the same patronizing coverage of this town's minorities akin to almost every other local MSM outlet, have few minorities on staff (Asians don't count) and also don't mention me in their rag given the fact that at least half of their current issue was linked on this blog about a half a week ago.