{"id":1249,"date":"2015-02-17T21:29:22","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T02:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2015-02-17T21:30:17","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T02:30:17","slug":"1249","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2015\/02\/1249.html","title":{"rendered":"Frank Borzellieri and the Death of Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2011, Frank Borzellieriwas terminated from his position as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a predominantly black and Hispanic Catholic elementary school located in the Bronx, New York. The Daily News <\/em>charged Borzellieri with \u201cwhite supremacy,\u201d the Church to which Borzellieri devoted his life upheld the conviction, and that was that.<\/p>\n

Yet the charge was baseless and the conviction cruelly unjust.<\/p>\n

Borzellieri is the author of six books, some of which treat racial and cultural issues.\u00a0 His great sin seems to consist in the fact that he dared to note that there are interracial IQ differences that correlate to some extent with other social indicia.<\/p>\n

In this, however, he joins every other scientist <\/em>who takes this data for granted.\u00a0 To name just a few examples:<\/p>\n

The Bell Curve <\/em>authors, Charles Murray, an American Enterprise Institute Scholar and the 2009 recipient of the Irving Kristol Award, and the late Richard Herrnstein, a Harvard professor; MIT scientist and best-selling author Steven Pinker; and Thomas Sowell, the black<\/em> \u201cconservative\u201d economist, nationally-syndicated columnist, and Hoover Institution fellow have been saying for decades nothing particularly different from anything that Borzellieri has written.<\/p>\n

Yet the notion that Borzellieri is any sort of \u201csupremacist\u201d is patently absurd on its face.<\/p>\n

Borzellieri chose\u2014he chose\u2014<\/em>to ply his craft as an educator tending to the needs of New York City\u2019s black and Hispanic students.\u00a0 Unlike many, Borzellieri didn\u2019t just talk <\/em>the talk about securing a quality education for \u201cinner city\u201d youth; he walked <\/em>the walk by investing, for a fraction of the pay as that earned by the talkers, his blood, sweat, and tears into seeing to it that these <\/em>inner city children\u2014his <\/em>children\u2014actually received the quality education to which they were entitled.<\/p>\n

Yet his commitment didn\u2019t end there.\u00a0 Borzellieri was also an elected\u2014<\/em>and twice re<\/em>elected\u2014member of the New York City school board. While in office, he quickly established for himself a reputation as being the sole \u201cconservative\u201d of the board.\u00a0 During his tenure he fought stridently\u2014the Washington Times <\/em>called him \u201cRambo\u201d\u2014against proposals to politicize school curricula by replacing literature on the likes of Washington and Columbus with such hard left fetishes as (so-called) \u201cmulticulturalism,\u201d \u201cbilingualism,\u201d and \u201cEbonics.\u201dBorzellieri as well resisted attempts to compel children to read books regarding homosexuality, masturbation, abortion, and birth control.<\/p>\n

In other words, Borzellieri was tireless in his campaign to insure that children were educated <\/em>into the traditions and skills of Western civilization\u2014not indoctrinated <\/em>into left-wing ideology.<\/p>\n

What a rat.<\/p>\n

His accusers are quick to note that Borzellierimust believe in \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d because he had at one time associated with Jared Taylor\u2019s American Renaissance (AR), an organization dedicated to the promotion of \u201crace realism.\u201d\u00a0 AR, you see, routinely explores the ways in which race and IQ intersect with all manner of other cultural phenomena.\u00a0\u00a0 So, Borzellieri must be a \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d because he\u2019s associated with people who talk about race and IQ and anyone who talks this way must believe in \u201cwhite supremacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The circular logic aside, there are some other considerations that decisively put out to pasture this illogic.<\/p>\n

First, as was mentioned earlier, if Borzellieri and, by implication, Jared Taylor, are \u201cwhite supremacists\u201d for noting quantifiable aggregate cognitive differences between racial groupings, then so too are all other scientists, particularly \u201cconservatives,\u201d including people of color.<\/p>\n

Second, it\u2019s true that Borzellieri and all other scientists recognize that whites in the aggregate <\/em>have a higher IQ than blacks and Hispanics considered as groups.\u00a0 <\/em>This, presumably, is what invites the \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d charge.\u00a0 But it is also readily noted that Asians, collectively, <\/em>have a higher <\/em>IQ than whites. This being so, isn\u2019t it more accurate, then, to charge Borzellieri with promoting \u201cyellow supremacy?\u201d It\u2019s a strange sort of \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d that affirms <\/em>the cognitive strength of a non-white <\/em>group over <\/em>that of whites (as a group).<\/p>\n

Third, if Borzellieri is a \u201cwhite supremacist\u201d for associating with AR, then so too are some fairly respectable \u201cconservative\u201d public figures, both black <\/em>and white, who also have some past dealings with AR.<\/p>\n

AR has been around since 1990.\u00a0 In 1999, seven talk radio hosts were interviewed for its January issue.\u00a0 All seven <\/em>acknowledged the same interracial IQ differences to which Borzellieri alludes\u2014even if some of them were non-committal when it came to rival theses that seek to account for these differences.\u00a0 So, who were these hosts?<\/p>\n

Michael Reagan, son of President Ronald Reagan; Michael Medved; the legendary New York City host, Bob Grant; David Brudnoy; Al Rantel; \u201cThe Black Avenger,\u201d Ken Hamblin; and \u201cthe Sage from South Central,\u201d Larry Elder, shared their thoughts on race, IQ, crime, immigration\u2014both legal and illegal\u2014race consciousness, affirmative action, welfare, etc.<\/p>\n

Are these whites and blacks, Christians, Jews, and agnostics, \u201cwhite supremacists?\u201d<\/p>\n

Later this same year, Jared Taylor\u2019s New Century Foundation released its, The Color of Crime: Race, Crime, and Justice in America.\u00a0 <\/em>Taylor, who was once on the New York Times <\/em>\u201cbest seller\u201d list, was invited to give a press conference on C-SPAN to discuss his latest.<\/p>\n

Was C-SPAN guilty of promoting \u201cwhite supremacy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Economist and nationally syndicated columnist Walter E. Williams\u2014a black<\/em> man\u2014verified the soundness of The Color of Crime <\/em>and quoted from it.<\/p>\n

Did Williams betray his commitment to \u201cwhite supremacy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to Borzellieri\u2019s reversal of fortunes, his work was showcased in a range of prominent publications, including Newsday, USA Today, The Guardian, <\/em>and even the Daily News. <\/em>He also made frequent guest appearances on numerous radio and television shows, from the Fox News Sunday Morning Show <\/em>to the programs of Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, and Geraldo Rivera.<\/p>\n

Today, Borzellieri lives a lonelier\u2014and dramatically harder\u2014existence.\u00a0 The man who wants for nothing more than to resume his duties as an educator is jobless.\u00a0 Branded with the \u201cR\u201d label, he\u2019s been shut out in the cold.<\/p>\n

Mike Abel, the caretaker of an orthodox church, has started a \u201cGo Fund Me\u201d page for Borzellieri.\u00a0 Please consider helping this casualty of Political Correctness.<\/p>\n

As Mike Abel says, Borzellieri could be any of us.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in 2011, Frank Borzellieriwas terminated from his position as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a predominantly black and Hispanic Catholic elementary school located in the Bronx, New York. The Daily News charged Borzellieri with \u201cwhite supremacy,\u201d the Church to which Borzellieri devoted his life upheld the conviction, and that was that. 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