Bak 2 Shul: CRT Truths in Rhode Island

Well, it’s that time of year again! This month, about fifty million US children will once again be herded into oppressive grooming-center concentration camps run by the tiny, fearful minions of satan. USA! USA! USA!

It’s another education column. This one was prompted by an informative article at Legal Insurrection, Romona Bessinger’s I’m A Teacher Who Blew The Whistle On CRT In Schools, Suffered Retaliation, But Now I’ve Prevailed. 

Mrs. Bessinger appears to be a member of the dwindling cadre of American teachers still dedicated to teaching. As one will learn from the linked article, Bessinger rang the alarm bell over the march of anti-civilizational doctrines into her Providence school(s) and she was punished for doing so. With the help of an attorney and some media coverage, she feels vindicated. Very soon she will report to Classical High School, Providence, happily back in the classroom to serve as an educator. Read the whole thing; it is inspirational and representative of the resistance to CRT mounted here and there around the country. However, I also read some odd admissions and road signs therein, which I will now address.

Bessinger related the situation in the trenches and asked a heartfelt question: “My students, almost all of whom were minority, started calling me ‘America’ because I was white — You are America, they would say, we are not. How could I keep silent seeing what the Critical Race curriculum was doing to the students and our society?”

The answer to the question, which she correctly and bravely provided, is that she could not keep silent. However, there are a few things that she and other Americans should understand about this situation, which is not at all confined to New England public schools. Even within the pack of vicious lies that is CRT, a little truth still lurks. Those minority students let it slip out. They are right that Bessinger is an American and that they are not. That is, in the traditional sense of the national definition; in the mythos of the postmodern, there simply is no tradition or sense.

The Preamble of the High and Most Holy *sing praise!* United States’ Constitution (1789 – 1861) plainly states who Americans are: 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Interspersed throughout the rest of the text are statements about who is not American. It was an exclusionary document, written by and for White Europeans. While not exclusively of English origins, they all were bound into a culture that was distinctly English or British. These facts are further reinforced by the Naturalization Act of 1790, the common, expressed understanding of the day, and by the language of the Declaration of Independence (from England, not Japan, Spain, or Mali) of 1776. At the time the Constitution was drafted, (poorly) debated, and ratified, the States were, in aggregate, over eighty percent White. That percentage rose and fell, generally increasing, and peaked around ninety percent between 1940 and 1950. The rhetoric of Thomas Jefferson notwithstanding, it was also founded as a Christian nation, and it still is, marginally and nominally.

To be American, was to be White. To be non-White, was to be not-American. I am proud, circumstances aside, of those students for recognizing the difference. And I suggest that the declining nature of education and the rising racial/ethnic tensions, both including CRT as cause and effect, are products of that difference and the shifting of the majority and minority populations.

The demographic change has been profound. In 1940, Rhode Island was 98.3% White. It was still 96.1% White in 1970 and 81.9% White in 2000. Today, it stands around 62% European heritage. The City of Providence has seen an ever steeper decline: 96.5% White in 1950, 89.5% in 1970, 64.5% in 1990, and a staggeringly-low 33.8%(!) in 2020. This is the fruit of the Great Replacement, which is not a “conspiracy theory;” rather, it is the official policy of the US government and its owners, and it has been since 1965. Today, they brag about it, smugly calling it “diffusion.” Providence has been diffused.

Bessinger’s new academic home, Classical High, has seen a shift consistent with, in fact, worse than the City’s. The school was 71.9% White in 1990 (down considerably from previous years). 2000 was the final year White students were a slight majority – at 50.4%. Last year, Whites were a mere 24.2% of the enrolled population. Hispanics are the largest group, followed by Whites. Whites are followed closely by Blacks. There is a healthy contingent of Asians, almost a percentage decade. There are also a number of “mixed” students and those of other separate races. These non-Whites, like most newcomers to any host society, have little to no interest in the history, traditions, and values of their new host country, state, and city. Being proud of who they are, they desire to continue the ways of their own peoples. Why wouldn’t they? This phenomenon has been exacerbated by CRT, but it exists independently. When minorities are smaller, when they truly are minorities, there are fewer issues because of overt or subliminal pressures to fit in. However, once a certain numerical line is crossed, certainly once the newcomers outnumber the natives, people naturally revert to their own in-group preferences. Diffusion = confusion at best.

Classical lists, among several nebulous house beliefs, that “education in a culturally, socially, and economically diverse environment enriches learning, builds community and opens the minds and hearts of people.” They certainly have achieved the diversity part in terms of race, ethnicity, and origin. They also offer student victims the choice of joining the Gender and Sexuality Alliance and the Yoga Club. Thus, they appear to have diversity in other fields, at least as to the “P” in the devil’s rainbow and regarding mind-altering demoniacs. In her story, Bessinger explains some of the fake political and gender-based ideologies inherent in CRT, while still not admitting or acknowledging the totality of the new demographic reality. No one can explain how any of it enriches, builds, or opens anything other than the doors of Babelistic discord and wickedness.

This is what Viktor Orban meant recently, in his speech not well received by the usual suspects (read the whole thing), about mixed-ancestry countries: “These countries are no longer nations: they are nothing more than a conglomeration of peoples.” He was speaking of the faltering nations of Western Europe, all of which are still many years behind the hard pace of the US. They would all do well to look to Providence as an example of what could someday be their future.

Bessinger posted a sad photograph of herself wearing a face diaper, her attempt at “complying with the school mask mandate.” The demented demand allegiance on all fronts, and it is unwise to give it to them on any. Still, she will undoubtedly try to pound some common culture and intelligence into the new jumble of identities. In partibus furibundus. It is a noble undertaking; may that she have some measure of success! 

Classical High, regardless of its transformation, still boasts better reported academic performance than the national average. US News ranks it 91st out of thousands of high schools. The 2022 proficiency scores are far better than the post-modern customary: 82% in English, 75% in math, and a (not-so-great) 42% in science. Still, per the inflationary standard, the school’s graduation rate is 97% – which, if one was “educated” in US schools, is higher than the proficiency measures suggest appropriate. 

What will Bessinger teach this fall? I gather that she, at heart, is a very good English teacher who enjoys sharing the historical relevance behind the literature. I have no doubt she is a proud American, a dedicated teacher, and a literate woman. However, in her anticipatory description of the coming school year, I caught something else rather telling:

I’ll be back in the classroom this September sharing literature about the Holocaust, American authors with universal messages to share, historical references and literature that reflects the greatness of America in all her flaws and perfection.  I’ll teach universal themes that all children can relate to, my classroom will have characters and poetry free of harmful political activism and full of accuracy.  I hope to instill critical thinking, freedom of thought, rigorous activities that promote lively discussion unprompted by curriculum materials filled with propaganda.

Most of that statement is laudably optimistic. Thinking, freedom, and rigor long ago departed the schools, though I am confident Bessinger will fight on in defiance of convention. But it was her very first example that caught my attention. In an essay devoted to American culture and education, “literature about the Holocaust” seems a little misplaced unless Meyer Levin and Elie Wiesel are considered American. Your author wonders how far back in time those historical references will stretch. (He suspects it will go no further than the mid-twentieth century, and that it will not include current statistical data). Perhaps she means the holocaust of the American Indians. Or the holocaust of the Southern Confederates. Or the holocaust of the unborn children. Or the current holocaust of the Great Replacement. Perhaps, but probably not.

Tom Ironsides was onto something when he noted the over-abundance of devotion in the schools to a religious, political, and historical episode that in no way concerned Americans. He found it in virtually all subjects – except math. Its inclusion here, as an example of a real curriculum to counter propaganda, is really an admission that another form of indoctrination already crept into academia and general society long before the advent of CRT. In fact, one might plausibly flow from or because of the other. Interesting, some might call it. Disheartening too.

Bessinger winds up her tale with the revelation that she resisted throwing in the towel and leaving the “nonsense” where it rots. It is my opinion that she should have, though I, of course, defer to her great courage and determination. Hopefully, she will accomplish a little mitigation as things move along. And they are moving. As I keep writing, no child – American or otherwise – deserves to be trapped in the US’s one-size-fits-none system. The children of each different group, like the groups themselves, will benefit from a degree of separation and realignment with reality. They all need something better and more fitting to their unique identities and cultures.

With that in mind, I find Bessinger’s parting words understandable but misplaced: “Now, I can continue to teach children the truth about this great nation and perhaps contribute to the restoration of a politically neutral zone for all children K-12.”

Political neutrality has nothing to do with the matter, because, the peripheral notions of FOX News, Ronald Reagan, and the Littlest Chickenhawk aside, the problem isn’t political. Identity > culture > politics. The proof of that little formula is born out by statistics, observable reality, and even by the very rise of CRT. The majority-minority kids already know it. It would be grand if everyone else would learn too.

The losing battle for the Amerikan shuls (Latin, scholis) begins again.