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Today’s blacklisted American: Teacher suspended and transferred for opposing racial segregation and bigotry

segregation returns to schools!
Providence’s policy of segregating teachers by race.

The modern dark age: Ramona Bessinger, a middle school teacher who had taught at her school in Providence, Rhode Island, for 22 years, was suspended without pay, then transferred to another school, because she had publicly criticized her school district’s effort to segregate teachers by race while changing its history curriculum to label white America as the source of all race hatred and black oppression.

When Bessinger showed up for work today [October 18], she was told to spend the day in the staff room. It was very cold in the room, and a local woman hearing of Bessinger’s plight, delivered a blanket for her: Late this afternoon Bessinger received word from her union rep on the outcome of the disciplinary hearing. Bessinger would receive a 5-day unpaid suspension, and Bessinger also would be transferred to another school.

The school claimed she was being punished because, during a school lockdown caused by a fight between a teacher and student, she allowed some students to leave her class anyway when the lunch bell sounded.

Bessinger denied the charges, noting that she had faced increasing hatred by administrators, teachers, and students because of her public criticism of the school’s new teaching syllabus, which encouraged hatred between the races and falsely painted America as a land of white supremacy. As she had written in July:

[A]round January 2021, hundreds of new leaflet style booklets arrived, all poorly written, historically biased, inaccurate, and pushing a racial narrative. I noticed the book covers right away. They were odd. In some cases the book covers browned out the faces of historical characters like Lincoln to look black or brown, none of the books were recognizable, and all the booklets seemed to revolve around slavery or oppression.

Perplexed, I thought there was a mistake. I asked a teacher leader what was going on and he looked jokingly at me saying “Comrade, we were told to remove all classroom sets of reading material in order to make room for the incoming sets of books.” I laughed, assuming this was a joke. But it was not a joke, this was real and happening in my school, in my classroom.

In isolation and without historical perspective, the thematic message in every book was clear: White Europeans were and are evil and African Americans were and are victimized by white oppressors. Woven into this new curriculum was a school-wide social push to focus on Black Lives Matter support groups and other social justice identity groups.

Teachers were encouraged to participate in “white educator affinity groups” where we would be given essays on how not to be a white supremacist in the classroom. This was a system-wide directive to separate white and non-white teachers for training. [emphasis mine]

She quickly found last year that this new curriculum was instilling hatred and anger in her students and her fellow teachers. Some were calling her names to her face, because she was white. Others now refused to say or stand for the pledge of allegiance. Teachers were attacking her, also because she happened to be white. Though she filed a harassment complaint, the school instead responded by punishing her.

Welcome to the modern dark, where segregation and racial hatred is promoted in the schools, so that young children quickly learn to hate each other and the country they were born in.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

9 comments

  • Cotour

    There must exist the ability of portability related to the funds derived from taxation that supports the school system. Obviously this portability of funds that follow the student is the key to breaking the hold that the teachers unions who are populated with these “Woke”, “Progressive”, racist activists. That and only that is what gives them power.

    That would end immediately this Leftist perversion of the education system.

    And they should be able to bring those funds to charter schools and religious schools. The parents MUST have the say and the choice as to where their child and the tax money that pays for their education goes.

  • Gary H

    It takes a large sums of money to move all of this societal disruption front and center. The schools, media, social web services and in person agitators require not only money, but organization. Only one entity has all of these requirements, including the ability to use surrogates to change elections. Only one entity is waging war on the US and they are doing it in every arena.

  • Milt

    The portability of tax-based school funding, as Coutour suggests, is certainly an answer. The problem is how to get it implemented.

    Here in Florida, where there has been a lot of legislative support for such a concept, voucher programs have been / are being put into place, even over the strenuous objections of the teachers unions and recalcitrant local school districts.

    https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/state/florida/

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-families-to-get-more-school-vouchers-as-desantis-signs-200m-choice-expansion/ar-BB1gCsAO

    In blue states and districts, where such programs are arguably most needed, there is of course no desire for them outside of a few backward parents (now labeled as “domestic terrorists” by the Biden Justice Department) who haven’t yet drunk the woke Kool-Aid. “God, no,” say the elected officials, “we *like* how our Critical Theory-based educational programs are working out, and we don’t want any kids to not get exposed to them.” So how does such portability legislation ever get passed in these places?

    Still, it’s a great idea, and I am open to suggestions as to how it might be implemented in blue states / districts. Where does one start? Otherwise, its the classic dilemma facing most Catholic parents; pay twice for your kid’s education and — worse — your taxes pay for the brainwashing of other people’s kids who attend gov’mint skools.

    PS — Once upon a time, I used to believe that public education was a *good* thing in that it played a useful role in the socialization of young people and it helped to instill a shared republican (note the small r) culture and patriotic values. (Many years ago, when I went to school, it actually did.) In short, it helped to make good Americans — and useful and competent citizens — out of impressionable young people who hadn’t a clue about such things. (A bonus thought question: Why, exactly, do societies bother to have educational institutions, and what is it that is supposed to be accomplished through their efforts? The radical left clearly intends to *destroy* our existing culture / society under the auspices of our current system of public education (that they have covertly taken over), but what is it that the rest of us want? What would a “better” system look like, and what would be its goals?)

    Sadly, “making good Americans” no longer seems to be the “mission” of public education, and many / most of our schools now appear to be doing their damnedest to demean and discredit every aspect of America’s history, culture, and traditional values — exactly as the suspended teacher describes in her school. Moreover, we are supposed to happily pay for this attack on our society from within.

    Again, how can we begin to fix this in places — unlike Florida — where there there is no desire for such changes? Very soon, it appears, the voters in Virginia will have something to say about this, particularly if their current governor can be retired.

  • Cotour

    “PS — Once upon a time, I used to believe that public education was a *good* thing in that it played a useful role in the socialization of young people and it helped to instill a shared republican (note the small r) culture and patriotic values. ”

    You are not wrong. Its just that the Left long ago figured out that they needed to infiltrate and control the education system ala Mao and Hitler.

    The first step to ending that control? Take the money way from them.

  • David K

    Please post the list of people on the school board who need to be replaced.

  • David K: A quick search on DuckDuckGo brought me here:

    Its meeting schedule:
    https://www.providenceschools.org/schoolboard

    Its members:
    https://www.providenceschools.org/Page/2876

  • James Street

    Now would be the time for churches and synagogues to start schools. There are excellent materials available so it’s not that hard to give a child a quality education.

    One of my neighbors home schools their kids and each day they complete the material in 3 hours that takes public schools the entire day. It doesn’t include all the nonsense.

  • DJ

    Having been in the business of developing Charter Schools around the US, the hardest part is getting the funds to follow the student. A Charter School cannot operate without students, since no students = no funds. Once one identifies the need (and a desire for a Charter School), one must apply with the local school district. That school district typically will put up some technical and some legal roadblocks. Some deny the Charter School plan outright. The only recourse is to appeal through the State Dept of Education, and ultimately to the Governor of the State. If that process is successful (my experience was about 10% of the time, the school district only has to give up a percent of the tax revenue they collect. This may be 70%, or less. So the Charter School has to find a building suitable for education, remodel to all codes which is required by the City of jurisdiction, develop transportation, hire educators, get all material and supplies, and maintain the facility, for 70% of the amount the local school district receives. Here in AZ it is different, but unfortunately the big conglomerates have bought up smaller Charter Schools and now run them as a business model to maximize profits. The ideology of the start of Charter Schools serving the underserved and needy gets lost, and that is sad. But the original idea and the one many small Charter Schools still operate by do serve the community that is typically underserved. This is way too long. But as to school districts! Have any of the readers noticed that when schools were basically closed, almost every single school district in Arizona asked for budget overrides and bond referendums. All without having in classroom schooling. Teacher’s supplies are typically 5% of the entire school district budget, and the teachers were not in the classroom at all. It is incredible what the district do. And if you wonder about how they really spend their money, think hierarchy, rank, and privilege as compare to need. I am a long time lurker, but this is a not button for me. Please accept my apologies in advance.

  • suggestions as to how it might be implemented in blue states / districts.
    It pains me to say it, but we may have to simply write these kids off. Their teachers are doing it, which provides some moral cover/equivalency. It’s cold, callous, and a tremendous waste of human potential, but trying to save everyone is going to fail. We’re at the point where triage is required.

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