Today’s blacklisted Americans: Two educators in NYC fired for refusing to do Black Panther salute
They’re coming for you next: Two different educators in New York City, one Jewish and the other a Dominican-American who calls herself Afro-Latina, have been fired for refusing to do the Black Panther salute popularized by the Disney sci-fi 2018 movie, Black Panther.
The latter, Rafaela Espinal, was fired as head of the Community School District 12 in the Bronx and forced to take a demotion in order to save her retirement and health benefits. Not only did she refuse to do this salute because she believed it created a racial divide, she found the policies of New York’s Department of Education (DOE) particularly offensive and bigoted, as described in her $40 million lawsuit filed against New York’s DOE.
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Fellow DOE administrators also allegedly told Espinal she wasn’t “Black enough” and she should “just learn to be quiet and look pretty,” she claims in the $40 million suit.
Espinal, 50, claims racial fissures began to emerge in superintendent meetings in the fall of 2017, when some Black administrators would meet separately after the larger group’s monthly gatherings. Soon, only the birthdays of Black superintendents were recognized at official meetings, she claims.
The other educator, Karen Ames (who is also suing the DOE), experienced equally bigoted treatment before she was fired.
Ames was grilled about her “ethnic background,” chastised by a colleague at a training session when she shared her grandparents’ experience during the Holocaust in Poland, and “admonished” when she declined requests at superintendents meetings to take part in the comic book movie-inspired “Wakanda Forever” salute to “black power,” she charges in the legal filing.
…At an implicit-bias workshop where superintendents were asked to tell their personal stories, Ames talked about her grandparents’ loss of two children during the Holocaust — only to have colleague Rasheda Amon tell her, “you better check yourself,” the lawsuit alleges. “That is not about being Jewish! It’s about black and brown boys of color only,” court papers quote Amon as scolding.
Consider: She offended these so-called warriors against bigotry because she cited the worst example of racial bigotry and genocide in the past century, merely because it was about Jews being killed, not “black and brown boys.”
In both cases, their superiors were demanding that these individuals make a public endorsement of a particular political position that both personally opposed. When they refused they were punished. Such actions are more than despicable, they fly in the face of everything freedom of speech and liberty of conscience stands for. They should not have been fired, they should have been promoted to positions of leadership.
But then, this is exactly the policy New Yorkers have been voting for for generations. The bigots who have taken full control of the modern corrupt Democratic Party in the past two decades now run the government of New York City, and they are quite willing to use their power to blackball and destroy anyone who opposes them.
Worse, I fully expect the New York City electorate to heartily endorse these actions in future elections, as it has for decades. The signs of this evil have been plain since the 1970s, and New Yorkers have routinely looked the other way. They are about to reap the whirlwind.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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They’re coming for you next: Two different educators in New York City, one Jewish and the other a Dominican-American who calls herself Afro-Latina, have been fired for refusing to do the Black Panther salute popularized by the Disney sci-fi 2018 movie, Black Panther.
The latter, Rafaela Espinal, was fired as head of the Community School District 12 in the Bronx and forced to take a demotion in order to save her retirement and health benefits. Not only did she refuse to do this salute because she believed it created a racial divide, she found the policies of New York’s Department of Education (DOE) particularly offensive and bigoted, as described in her $40 million lawsuit filed against New York’s DOE.
.
Fellow DOE administrators also allegedly told Espinal she wasn’t “Black enough” and she should “just learn to be quiet and look pretty,” she claims in the $40 million suit.
Espinal, 50, claims racial fissures began to emerge in superintendent meetings in the fall of 2017, when some Black administrators would meet separately after the larger group’s monthly gatherings. Soon, only the birthdays of Black superintendents were recognized at official meetings, she claims.
The other educator, Karen Ames (who is also suing the DOE), experienced equally bigoted treatment before she was fired.
Ames was grilled about her “ethnic background,” chastised by a colleague at a training session when she shared her grandparents’ experience during the Holocaust in Poland, and “admonished” when she declined requests at superintendents meetings to take part in the comic book movie-inspired “Wakanda Forever” salute to “black power,” she charges in the legal filing.
…At an implicit-bias workshop where superintendents were asked to tell their personal stories, Ames talked about her grandparents’ loss of two children during the Holocaust — only to have colleague Rasheda Amon tell her, “you better check yourself,” the lawsuit alleges. “That is not about being Jewish! It’s about black and brown boys of color only,” court papers quote Amon as scolding.
Consider: She offended these so-called warriors against bigotry because she cited the worst example of racial bigotry and genocide in the past century, merely because it was about Jews being killed, not “black and brown boys.”
In both cases, their superiors were demanding that these individuals make a public endorsement of a particular political position that both personally opposed. When they refused they were punished. Such actions are more than despicable, they fly in the face of everything freedom of speech and liberty of conscience stands for. They should not have been fired, they should have been promoted to positions of leadership.
But then, this is exactly the policy New Yorkers have been voting for for generations. The bigots who have taken full control of the modern corrupt Democratic Party in the past two decades now run the government of New York City, and they are quite willing to use their power to blackball and destroy anyone who opposes them.
Worse, I fully expect the New York City electorate to heartily endorse these actions in future elections, as it has for decades. The signs of this evil have been plain since the 1970s, and New Yorkers have routinely looked the other way. They are about to reap the whirlwind.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
You beat me to it:
“I fully expect the New York City electorate to heartily endorse these actions in future elections”
So do I. I’d love a poli-sci major to explain that phenomenon to me. And why I needn’t worry where people like that, fortified by electoral success, will go next, and do what.
small edit – third- from-last paragraph: I think “conscience” fits better than “conscious”
Andi: You are correct. I have fixed my mental mistake.
It’s beyond disgusting that they wouldn’t consider the Holocaust. The other day, I was reading witness accounts of Babi Yar and started crying halfway through – couldn’t finish it.
Sure hope they win. It will send a message to other organizations who think they can say whatever they want and not be liable.
The most racist people I know are not white as a rule, though there are some.
“The Tarantulas ?️”
Jordan Peterson / Friedrich Nietzsche / Akira the Don
2018
https://youtu.be/7zIkUkRLJAM?t=87
“Therefore do I tear at your webs, that your rage may lure you out of your den of lies, and that your revenge may leap forth from behind your word “justice.””
Even black Americans say that blacks are more racist and “superior”! When was the last time that you saw a “White is Beautiful” or “White Power Salute” or “White Congressional Caucus” or ANY other organizations specifically FOR White people??? Why are white people now so villianous and must be destroyed? Tell ME who are the racists!!
Will they really, though?
Until recently I would have agreed that it was what they wanted and that they deserved to get it good and hard.
But after the blatant, flagrant, mind-blowing extent of the fraud in the last election, I’m now wondering if these Blue cities have had an honest election in decades.
Luke:
All of those blue cities and states in financial distress due to their Socialist policies will now be topped up with cash through the recently past “Covid” bill in the Congress. And all of that money, billions and billions, trillions, will be spent and it will find its way back into the coffers of the Democrat party machine and there in the corruption will further be funded. Funded for years to come, keeps the minions well paid for the services they provide to the party. And we all witnessed those kinds of services in the last presidential election and the results there of.
The Democrat party and its leadership must have illegals in their future voter hopper, the least secure voting systems, no I.D. for voting and all the rest, and most important they need their secure source of funding and that is now apparently in place.
Robert wrote: “In both cases, their superiors were demanding that these individuals make a public endorsement of a particular political position that both personally opposed.”
This is yet another example of government taking sides in politics. In this case, government is requiring its employees to be on that one side, too. America was founded explicitly to get away from this kind of tyranny.
One has to wonder why the government has a requirement to perform a made-up salute from a fictitious comic book, and why the government considers that to be a safe, inclusive work environment that is neither discriminatory nor improper.
‘Wakanda,’ just as made-up, as Kwanzaa.
“Kwanzaa Was Invented By An Insane Leftist Gangster Who Tortured Women”
Michael Knowles 2017
https://www.dailywire.com/news/kwanzaa-was-invented-insane-leftist-gangster-who-michael-j-knowles
“Kwanzaa began in 1966 when Los Angeles City College professor of Africana Studies, Ronald Everett, later re-styled Maulana Ndabezitha Karenga, launched an atheistic holiday specifically for black Americans. He derived the name from the Swahili phrase “matunda y kwanza,” which means “first fruits of the harvest.” Ironically, it is unlikely that any of the West African slaves transported to the Americas would have understood the East African phrase.”
“As any postmodern schoolboy knows, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are unity, self-determination, collective work, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith — not in God, but in “our people.” If those principles sound familiar, that’s because they were adopted in 1973 by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing terrorist group famous for the murders of a school superintendent and a 42-year-old mother of four in addition to kidnapping and raping 19-year-old heiress Patty Hearst.”
“Everett himself is no stranger to crime. In 1969 his black nationalist gang, “US,” murdered two Black Panthers during a turf war at UCLA. Two years later, Everett was sentenced to prison for felonious assault and false imprisonment after he tortured two women, Gail Davis and Deborah Jones.”
“Despite the viciousness and extent of his crimes, Everett spent only four years in prison before a letter-writing campaign by his supporters led to a grant of parole in 1975. Helping the case for clemency was the conclusion of a psychiatrist who examined him in 1971 that Everett was insane, “both paranoid and schizophrenic.””
“Although virtually no one celebrates Everett’s invention, schoolchildren for decades have been taught the importance of Kwanzaa to the “holiday season.” That sly euphemism compares a decades-old, race-exclusive, vainglorious contrivance invented by an insane gangster who tortured women and inspired terrorists to “good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Perhaps we ought to spend less time celebrating history and more time learning it…..”