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Bronx Catholic School Principal Has Ties To White Supremacy Movement
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jul 31, 2011
Modified Jul 31, 2011
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jul 31, 2011
Modified Jul 31, 2011
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Former news columnist, teacher and ultra-conservative school board member Frank Borzellieri has ties to American Renaissance, or AmRen, a white supremacist publication. He's also been the principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in the Bronx, a school with a majority of black and Hispanic students, for the past two years. Mount Carmel's pastor, Rev. Eric Rapaglia, tells the Daily News he didn't see a potential conflict between the black and Hispanic students at the school and Borzellieri's views: "Do I agree with all of it? No. But I think much of it is valuable and logical and reasonable. A lot of his ideas would actually benefit minorities." Wow, there's gonna be some awkward parent-teacher conferences this fall!
Borzellieri wrote in his instant classic "Don't Take It Personally: Race, Immigration, Crime and Other Heresies," that "diversity is a weakness" and the increase in Hispanic and black populations will lead to a "New Dark Age." In another work he shares his account of stopping the "grotesque homosexual infiltration" in School District 24 in Queens: "When a radical homosexual district teacher was discussing his perversions in front of his fourth grade class, Frank Borzellieri was alone in trying to stop him."
The Southern Poverty Law Center claims that Borzellieri is still "intimately" involved with AmRen, and has spoken at their yearly conferences. Last year's conference in D.C. was cancelled because hotels refused to book them after finding out who they were. Even a few death threats to the hotels couldn't keep the dream alive.
One thing Borzellieri isn't racist towards: guns! He doesn't discriminate at all with those. On his blog, which contains rambling screeds on women's place in society and an obsession with the "Million Mom March," Borzellieri pretty much just makes a bunch of shit up:
It is axiomatic to all Americans of the most minimal common sense that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens is the greatest deterrent to street crime. The trend is an absolute. In locales where citizens freely carry guns, crime is lowest. In metropolises with tight gun control, violent crime is rampant. The reasons for this are so self-evident they hardly need explaining.
It must be "axiomatic," because he's the principal. Never mind all those Harvard egghead (reverse-racists!) studies done that prove the exact opposite. When Borzellieri was teaching at St. Barnabas School in the Bronx, students told teachers that Borzellieri said he was using them for "research," but their complaints were "dismissed." How did this guy get hired in the first place? An Archdiocese spokesman tells the paper that "pastors had greater leeway" to hire principals shortly before Borzellieri was hired, but "we saw room for improvement."
Borzellieri's former principal at St. Barnabas feels that,"You can't have someone with those beliefs or who writes that kind of stuff working at a Catholic school." Aw c'mon. In Borzellieri's own words: don't take it personally!
Tagged
bigotry
bronx
Catholic School
frank borzellieri
racists
Southern Poverty Law Center
white supremacy
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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