Posted on September 26, 2021

My Battle Against Multiculturalism

Frank Borzellieri, American Renaissance, January 1996

Diversity Globe

Nowhere in the United States is the fury of the political thought police greater than in New York City. It is here, in the multicultural Mecca, that the truth about culture and race faces the most brutal intimidation.

When I ran for election in 1993 to the District 24 School Board in Queens, I made a campaign promise to try to end taxpayer funding of anti-American multicultural books and materials in our schools and libraries. The New York City schools system graduates thousands of incompetents and illiterates every year but it still finds millions of dollars to spend on anti-academic, anti-Western trash.

After I was elected, I decided to inspect classrooms and libraries in our district. I came across loads of objectionable materials. One children’s book depicted Columbus as a pilferer and madman interested only in spices and riches. No mention was made of his heroism or of the fact that he brought Christianity to the New World. History books consistently focused on the brutality of slavery, while ignoring many of the glorious achievements of Western culture, the most successful and moral culture in history. On the walls of the classrooms were pictures of Maya Angelou and Malcolm X, not Thomas Jefferson or Paul Revere.

I was interviewed by a reporter from Newsday, a major New York daily newspaper, and decided to show her some of these books. One of them, I Hate English, was designed to make Americans feel guilty about expecting immigrants to learn English. Another was Jambo Means Hello: The Swahili Alphabet Book, which is promoted by radical multiculturalists who want to force Afro-centrism on a student body that, according to surveys, doesn’t know that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.

I also criticized a children’s book by Alex Haley, Young Martin’s Promise, which portrayed Martin Luther King as a virtual saint. I pointed out that King was a plagiarist, embezzler, adulterer, and known communist fellow traveler, and that it was ridiculous to canonize him but disparage Columbus. I was quoted as referring to King as “a leftist hoodlum with significant communist ties.” I wanted to know why we must commit national suicide by focusing on every third world basket-case culture when we already have our own superior culture, which should be taught to American children.

The interview just about turned the city upside down. In a whirlwind of publicity, I appeared on virtually every local television and radio news program and on the full gamut of national television talk shows. Geraldo Rivera nearly passed out when I said that the NAACP was a “liberal freak organization.” Former New York City mayor, Ed Koch, asked me on his television program why the press had not “discovered,” during my campaign for the school board, that I was “the next David Duke.” Newsday ran an editorial entitled “Mr. Whitebread.” Noting that I had told Newsday that “we are a white Christian, British Protestant nation,” an editorial in the New York Daily News asked sarcastically: “Could you please point to the Borzellieris on the Mayflower passenger manifest?”

Then there was the school board meeting in Corona, Queens (a multiracial heartland), where a vicious crowd of 500 people spent four hours denouncing me. The audience included supporters of Leonard Jeffries, the black supremacist who says that blacks are the “sun” people and whites are the inferior “ice” people. There were also representatives of the NAACP, which six months earlier tried to have a book banned in the public schools in Fairfax, Virginia because they thought it was “offensive to blacks.” In this dangerous atmosphere, I needed a police escort to get home.

A Wide Gulf

However, when it comes to matters of race and culture, there is a wide gulf between official, establishment opinion, and the true sentiments of the silent majority. With the exception of two local radio hosts and National Review magazine, I had no public support. But letters came pouring in by the hundreds, almost unanimously in favor of my views. Dispossessed white people were writing as if I had relieved them of a great burden. “It’s about time!” they all seemed to be saying, noting that I had said out loud what they were thinking privately.

Despite this man-in-the-street support, people in positions of influence were silent. Many told me they agreed with me, but were terrified at the thought of being seen defending me. My Republican city councilman said, “I know you’re right, but I’ve worked too hard to get where I am to put up with flack from my colleagues.”

This pathetic lack of backbone is also typical of the people who have the power to make the greatest difference in the schools — principals, teachers, administrators, librarians, and even parents. A respected veteran principal in the district told me, “I’ve been waiting for years for someone like you to come along.” When I suggested that his support would certainly help the cause, he replied sheepishly, “You want me to say this publicly?”

Socrates said that men are by nature slaves. I strongly believe in a slight variation of this, namely, that people are by nature conformist cowards. They are consumed with fear of being lynched by the same hysterical mob I encountered. Their fear of being called a racist rivals only the fear of death itself. This silence by the very teachers and administrators who are in the best position to support my complaints is in stark contrast to the total lack of inhibition or fear shown by my totalitarian enemies.

In fact, most people exaggerate the dangers of speaking out. Except for an occasional unfriendly school board meeting I have never feared for my physical safety, and I have received no “threatening” mail. Until the public at large overcomes its fears and is willing to express its true beliefs we will continue to be dispossessed by fanatical multiculturalists who are taking our nation down the road to cultural and racial ruin.

So far, although I have attracted a great deal of attention, I have not been able to remove any anti-Western books from our schools. This would require a majority on the school board and, so far, I am the only conservative. The sad irony is that the board has a seven-out-of-nine white majority, who represent conservatives, but lie about their intentions at election time.

It would be possible to get a conservative majority on the school board — and restore some sanity to the schools — but it would take a great deal of money and effort. It would also be the greatest political earthquake in New York’s history.

Strong as my local support is, even my own reelection in May 1996, is not assured. The political and media establishments could unite in an effort to defeat me. On the other hand, non-white votes are likely to be split among several liberal challengers. I certainly expect to win, but only if I work hard and manage to raise enough money to get the message to the middle-class neighborhoods where I am popular. It is not easy to fight the machine, but if you are determined you can do it.