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A Haunting Story We Needed
00:03:09
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| Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. | |
| And this is a story we felt you needed to hear. | |
| My God, it's been haunting me. | |
| A beloved Toronto principal, Richard Bilkstow, tragically died by suicide in July. | |
| And what led up to that decision is absolutely chilling. | |
| And I would submit was inevitable with the crazy race essentialism DEI approach that we've been forcing down the throats of people in our country and our neighbors to the north in Canada where this happened. | |
| The free press, this is the, you know, the media group that Barry Weiss, our friend, started, and they've been doing great reporting. | |
| They did an in-depth report on Richard and the DEI training sessions that he participated in before his death that really weren't DEI training. | |
| They were bully sessions. | |
| That's what happened to this man. | |
| I believe he was bullied to death. | |
| And joining me now with the story is Free Press reporter Rupa Subramania. | |
| Rupa, thank you so much for being here and for this great reporting. | |
| It is absolutely on the show, Megan. | |
| It's a real honor. | |
| It's, as I said, it was a matter of time because so many people, like, if I went to a DEI training, I'd probably be kicked out because the things I'd be saying would be unacceptable. | |
| People who are of the left feel the need to be accepted by those doing these trainings. | |
| And while some are brave enough to push back here or there, they do get made examples of. | |
| You know, they wind up being the one that gets examples. | |
| You know, like, oh no, this is wrong. | |
| And it's happened to people, like when I was in the city, they offered this at my daughter's school. | |
| And another mom came to me. | |
| She's a white mom. | |
| And she said the entire time it was the white people were shamed. | |
| It was all about, you know, it was very anti-white and about how the country's, you know, white nationalist and so on and so forth. | |
| And you were not allowed to speak. | |
| Like they told the white people to be quiet for the entire training for two days. | |
| And finally, at the end of the training on the second day, the white people were allowed to say something and she gently, very gently pushed back, saying, you know, I don't think the country's that racist. | |
| We elected a black president, you know, whatever. | |
| And they just, the shitstorm that rained down on her, they made an example of her so that nobody else would speak out. | |
| So that brings me to your story. | |
| When I read it, it sounded very familiar to me. | |
| This one gentleman pushed back gently on some of the narrative that was being spewed in his DEI training. | |
| And the pylon that then happened to him was grossly unfair. | |
| So take us to the beginning of Richard Bilkstow's story. | |
| Thanks, Megan. | |
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Richard's Passion For Education
00:02:29
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| Richard Bilkstowe, his passion was always education. | |
| He loved teaching and mentoring, and especially kids who came from the most marginalized and underprivileged backgrounds. | |
| And he really felt that he could make a difference to a young person's life. | |
| And, you know, not all of us get to live our dreams, but he actually got to live his dream of teaching. | |
| He was a lifelong educator. | |
| He was loved by his students and admired by his colleagues, his peers, and school board officials. | |
| And he was recognized as a leader in adult education here in the province of Ontario, where I live and where Richard Biltster lived. | |
| And that was his expertise teaching young adults in the province. | |
| He retired in 2019, but he loved teaching so much that he worked as a supply principal at various adult learning centers. | |
| And he did this not because he needed the money, but he truly loved what he did. | |
| And in 2020, Richard Bilstow was hired as a principal at an adult learning center in Toronto. | |
| His work was so appreciated that school board officials wanted him back for the fall of 2021. | |
| So he signed a new contract in April of that year. | |
| That's when his life really began to fall apart because of this one incident that happened at a DI training session. | |
| Now, the Toronto District School Board, which is the country's largest school board, decided to run an equity, diversity, and inclusion event. | |
| And this was outsourced to a well-known DI consultancy firm in Toronto called the Kojo Institute. | |
| And as a principal, KOJO, which is named after, I believe, after its CEO, Kiki Oder Thompson. | |
| And we'll be coming back to her in a bit because she's an important part of the story, obviously. | |
| And as a principal, he was expected to attend, but it's important to keep in mind here that that's not why he went. | |
| And this I've pieced together from people who knew him well, people who were close to him. | |
| He was always looking out for opportunities where he could improve himself professionally because he loved what he did so much that he wanted to do his job better. | |
|
The Toxic Teachable Moment
00:09:07
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| And it's also very important to keep in mind here, Megan, that Richard was very much on the progressive left. | |
| He truly believed in things like diversity, equity, and inclusion. | |
| He was gay. | |
| And the first session begins April 19th, 2021, goes out without incident. | |
| Nothing, as far as I'm aware, happened there. | |
| But it all began at the second training session on April 26th, where Kiki Oja Thompson, the CEO of Kojo Institute, she's running the training session. | |
| She makes a claim that Canada is a bastion of white supremacy and that Black Canadians, African Canadians in Canada, experience racism that is far worse here in Canada than in the U.S. All right, let me stand you by because we have a little bit of that. | |
| We've got some soundbites and I'll play them where appropriate. | |
| But here's just a taste of that exact moment that you just referred to in Soundbite 1. | |
| The racism is, we experience those far worse here than there. | |
| So I know that's going to be hard once people wrap their head around, but that's the level of white supremacy. | |
| Like Canada's the bastion of white supremacy and colonialism. | |
| Like they at least had a fighting posture against at least the monarchy. | |
| Here we celebrate the monarchy, the very heart and soul and origins of the colonial structure. | |
| Think about that and all that it represents. | |
| We hold it dear still. | |
| Keep going. | |
| Now, Richard had, you know, he had taught in an inner city high school in Buffalo, a school with a large African-American population. | |
| And he felt that this claim made by Kiki Oja Thompson needed to be challenged. | |
| And he felt that people of color were far more disadvantaged in the U.S. than in Canada. | |
| And he puts and he put that view out in the DEI session. | |
| He says, look, Canada, we have a lot of problems. | |
| We've got that too, just a bit. | |
| And this is pretty bold. | |
| I mean, this is bold, but really, it's a guy kind of trying to defend his own country too, saying, I've been in America. | |
| It's way worse there. | |
| Like, wait, it's not worse in Canada than it is in America, which, you know, we could debate all day. | |
| Who cares? | |
| But the point is, this is his point of view. | |
| And he's trying to rehabilitate Canada to a bit, to it to an extent with this Kiki. | |
| And here's a little bit of what he said in top two. | |
| I just wanted to make a comment about the Canada-U.S. thing. | |
| And a little bit of a challenge of it. | |
| I did my student teaching in the U.S. and have spent a lot of time in the U.S. | |
| And to say here honestly that Canada is not a more just society than the United States is, and we talked about facts and figures. | |
| I invite everyone here to do some research. | |
| And you look at, yeah, absolutely. | |
| And look at things like education and look how more, you think about a system we have in Ontario where every student is funded equally. | |
| They go to the United States. | |
| They're funded based on their tax base. | |
| We have a public education system where everyone is funded the same way. | |
| It's not like that in the United States. | |
| We have a healthcare system here where everyone has access to health care. | |
| It is not the same way in the United States. | |
| So to say, sit here and say, all honesty, we're talking about facts and figures, and to walk into the classroom tomorrow and say, Canada's just as bad as the United States, I think we're doing an incredible disservice to our learners. | |
| So it's a perspective from somebody who's lived in both countries that any normal, open-minded person running even a DEI session would say, oh, an interesting point. | |
| Let's talk about it. | |
| No, that's not how it went. | |
| I'll just cut you the next sound bite and then I'll give it back to you. | |
| Here's Kiki's response to what he said. | |
| And you'll hear Richard on the back end. | |
| Here's how she handled it. | |
| So what's fascinating is, and this is why we're in the place that we're in, is that you think, so we're talking about anti-black racism, but you and your whiteness think that you can tell me what's really going on for black people. | |
| Like, is that what you're doing? | |
| I feel like I think that's what you're doing, but I'm not sure. | |
| So I'm going to leave you space to tell me what you're doing right now. | |
| Exactly. | |
| I just wanted to make the point. | |
| You were talking about the United States. | |
| And I just want to do a comparison. | |
| And as I said, you talked about facts and figures and, you know, listening to the facts and figures. | |
| And I think if everyone here looks at the facts and figures and all kinds of, all kinds of studies, and you'll see we're a far more just society. | |
| Okay. | |
| Can I just say this, Rupa? | |
| I'm, this is like, I hate the term, but it does work. | |
| It's triggering for me because at my, we pulled our kids out of these New York City schools that were super woke. | |
| I mentioned my daughters, but my son's was over, I mean, just over the top on all this stuff, race, gender, all of it. | |
| And they were, they had a racial presentation there at our son's school that walked you through how you're a racist. | |
| If in response to a person of color telling you you're a racist or that America's racist, if your first response is to question it in any way, that's further evidence of your racism, totally right out of the Robin D'Angelo handbook. | |
| And this was presented to the parents at the school in a slideshow by their new head of DEI as fact. | |
| If you have any resistance to the notion that America's racist or you're racist as a white person, further evidence of your racism, and that's just your denial, and you're working through like a 10-step program to where finally, if you get beaten over the head with it enough, you'll recognize you're a racist, America's racist, and only once you land in that par in that point, have you come full circle on the DEI training and sort of get your, you know, your gold star. | |
| So I totally see what she is doing to him. | |
| You're not allowed to challenge a Black person speaking about this issue, period. | |
| The mere fact that he could have said anything that was challenging. | |
| It didn't have to be what he said. | |
| It's not allowed. | |
| Go ahead. | |
| Well, yes. | |
| I mean, Ojo Thompson, as we heard in that clip you just played, reacts angrily, accuses him of white privilege and accuses him of not understanding the plight of Black Canadians. | |
| And then after that, things go from bad to worse. | |
| Ojo Thompson, after that interaction, seemed to want to make an example out of Richard. | |
| And in another clip that we obtained, she refers to him as a weed and that they got the weed whacker out today. | |
| And she's laughing as she says that. | |
| And that, you know, made for just, you know, it was just horrifying listening to that. | |
| And then he, the session continues. | |
| And then the following session, which happens the next week on May 3rd, Richard goes to this session as well. | |
| At this session, Kiki Ojo Thompson refers to the previous session. | |
| She, in fact, refers to the previous, the interaction in the previous session that she had with Richard without naming him. | |
| And she says, let's talk about that. | |
| You know, let's talk about what resistance looks like. | |
| What does a resistor do? | |
| What are a resistor's tactics? | |
| What does a resistor sound like? | |
| And this was basically an invitation for the participants, the attendees in this session, to put forth their views. | |
| One would have expected someone to actually challenge her a little bit on her claims, or at least come to Richard's defense. | |
| But no one came to his defense. | |
| There were 200 people at this session, and not a single person stood up for Richard Bilstow. | |
| Fellow educators either remained silent or they piled on him. | |
| He was completely alone and isolated and made to feel incredibly humiliated. | |
| Here's we had a little bit of that. | |
| She called it a teachable moment, dragged back up the earlier instance, and then got into what an example he is of essentially white supremacy. | |
| It's SOP 5. | |
| One of the ways that white supremacy is upheld, protected, reproduced, upkept, defended is through resistance. | |
| And like I said, as I began to speak earlier, we had, I'm so lucky, sort of thought my luck would show up so well last week that we got perfect evidence of a wonderful example of resistance that you all got to bear witness to. | |
| So we're going to talk about it because, I mean, it doesn't get better than this. | |
| She's giggling. | |
| She's enjoying it. | |
| She loves rubbing his nose in it as she calls him a racist. | |
| That's essentially what she's saying. | |
| Absolutely. | |
|
Humiliation And Trauma
00:14:49
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| And we have to keep this in mind that Richard was dedicated his life to teaching. | |
| And for him to be humiliated in this manner, surrounded by people that he had once worked with, had to have had a traumatic effect on him. | |
| And it did, given the stress that he'd been under, Richard went on sick leave on May 4th. | |
| That same day, he made a claim of workplace harassment to school board officials. | |
| Three months later, this body that investigated the matter ruled in his favor, saying that, to quote them, the conduct of the speaker on April 26, 2021 and May 3rd, 2021 was abusive, egregious, and vexatious and rises to the level of workplace harassment and bullying. | |
| On July 1st of that year, he was medically cleared to return to work, but then, you know, that was not the end of the story. | |
| The school board failed to honor his contract to return as a principal that fall. | |
| He had another long-term contract teaching opportunity that, you know, that school reneged on that contract. | |
| And basically, you know, he went from being the star educator, a leader in the field of adult education to finding himself being canceled. | |
| Nobody wanted to be seen with him or no one wanted to associate themselves with him. | |
| School officials began to distance themselves from him. | |
| He was essentially seen as damaged goods at this point. | |
| And his life spiraled down into despair. | |
| And that led to his tragic suicide on July 13th, 2023. | |
| My God, this just happened. | |
| And I know that he was in touch with the free press prior to taking his own life. | |
| He was talking about this whole situation. | |
| So what was his demeanor and what was he saying? | |
| Well, so I didn't personally speak to him. | |
| It was my co-author, Ari Blaff, who interviewed him. | |
| And you can see that Richard was optimistic. | |
| He was optimistic about this lawsuit. | |
| And speaking to his close friends and family, you know, he was generally pretty optimistic about the direction in which things were going for him. | |
| But he was terrified about the legacy media getting a hold of the lawsuit and once again, he feared that his name would be dragged through the mud. | |
| This was what terrified him in the weeks before his death. | |
| He was really worried that the mainstream media would call him a white supremacist, a racist, once again. | |
| And this caused him a lot of anxiety and stress, according to his best friend, whom I spoke to for the story. | |
| And he was last in touch with him a day before Richard killed himself. | |
| And, you know, he hadn't been sleeping and the stress was really getting to him. | |
| And as his best friend said, only people who were very, very close to him truly know how much he suffered. | |
| He just wasn't the same person anymore. | |
| He may have been optimistic about the lawsuit and what in the future he had plans for the future, but deep down inside, he was terrified. | |
| He felt humiliated. | |
| He felt isolated and marginalized. | |
| And he felt a great sense of letdown from the community of educators who were once who just a year and a half earlier were praising him and telling him what a great educator he was. | |
| And now he was seen as a white supremacist and a racist. | |
| I mean, just for the record, to remind the audience again, all the guy did was to say, sure, we may be racist here in Canada, but they're more racist in America when it comes to the children and the education approach because of the tax districts and so on. | |
| That's what he said. | |
| That is what caused. | |
| I've listened to all of the tapes that the free press got its hands on. | |
| That's it. | |
| There was no moment. | |
| There was no moment that, you know, would have made you feel like you're watching some right-wing television show, right? | |
| Not at all. | |
| Nothing. | |
| That one exchange we just played wound up ruining his life because Kiki didn't like it and didn't think he had the right to challenge her because she's a black woman and therefore everything she says is true, period, whether it is or it isn't. | |
| So did Richard have, you know, was there, were there any other prior suicide attempts? | |
| Did he have a longstanding issue mentally or, you know, in terms of mental health? | |
| No, that's a great question and a question that I've asked everyone that I've spoken to, including his family, whom he was very close to and his very close friends. | |
| And no, he was, you know, a very jovial person. | |
| He had a great personality. | |
| He loved his job. | |
| He dedicated his life to teaching. | |
| He loved his students and he liked going to Mexico. | |
| There was no indication at all that, you know, there was no prior history of mental illness or any attempts at taking his life prior to this. | |
| And so this one incident, this few minutes of interaction at this DI training session had a profound effect on him. | |
| There's no question in my mind that it really just affected him to such an extent. | |
| It's important to keep in mind, Megan, that as a school principal, his reputation, or for that matter, every school principal or teacher anywhere, whether in the U.S. or Canada, their reputation has to be absolutely stellar. | |
| And when there's an attempt to tarnish that or it gets tarnished for whatever reason, it's very difficult to come back from that. | |
| And we know this as writers and journalists, how important that is. | |
| And some of us, I think, handle it better than others, I suppose. | |
| Richard handled it, but ultimately it was too much for him to bear. | |
| And one explanation that I was given by his, you know, that came to me from his family was that the last name, Bilkstow, is uncommon. | |
| And so Richard was very worried that if the mainstream media were to write about his lawsuit, again, dragging his name through the mud and smearing him once again, he truly felt that his family name, that his family would suffer as a result. | |
| And his family feels that this probably was one reason why he took that ultimate step. | |
| Oh my God. | |
| It's like, I just want to say to people, I talk about this all the time. | |
| I really believe that reputation is a mirage. | |
| It's a mirage. | |
| All that matters is who you actually are and who and your relationships with the people, as I say, within 15 feet of you, the people who really know you would know that this was a lie about Richard. | |
| He got spun up in the belief that reputation is real and that, I mean, sure, it would have real life consequences for him potentially on the employment front and so on. | |
| But my God, I wish I could have spoken with him. | |
| You know, as somebody who's been through something similar, I wish I could have spoken with him. | |
| I hope that anybody out there suffering with this, because this is being done to people in Canada and in the United States and all over the world now, should know that these are passing storms, that these are dishonest brokers who do this to you, and that people are catching on, maybe not as much in April 2021. | |
| But by July, you know, this month, yet last month, we've caught on to this cynical game that's being played. | |
| But Richard sounds like he was a tender soul and they got to him. | |
| And that's the risk. | |
| That's the risk that, you know, this school system ran in bringing in this person, right? | |
| And she's still up and operating, is she not, Rupa? | |
| She's still out there. | |
| Like other, this woman could get hired tomorrow by a school in Canada or the United States. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| Well, this institute boasts a pretty big client list, including the CDC, HM, and a bunch of other government organizations here in Canada. | |
| So they certainly have made a lot of money from these DI training sessions. | |
| His death was so incredibly tragic and was completely avoidable. | |
| And what's happened now is rather than being contrite and being compassionate, Kojo Institute and Kiki Ojo Thompson seem to be doubling down by saying that right-wing elements are trying to weaponize his death and use it against her, that she's in fact the actual victim here. | |
| And even though a man died by suicide after being abused at our training session. | |
| And this tragedy, if I may say this, is one instance which shows truly how Canada has drifted to such an extreme where dissent and healthy debate are tarred as disinformation or malice. | |
| And this is coming from the prime minister on down. | |
| And I feel that we truly are in this Orwellian situation. | |
| And it's not at all clear how we go from here and how we get out of this mess. | |
| But it's a good warning to you guys, our friends south of the border, of exactly where you don't want to go. | |
| Right. | |
| But we are. | |
| As I say, this already infiltrated my schools back in 2020. | |
| So, I mean, I was living this firsthand. | |
| This is already here. | |
| If you think this is a problem, only in Canada, you haven't been paying attention. | |
| I'll guarantee you there's some DEI coordinator who's trying to get into the school of all American children right now with this similar messaging. | |
| I've seen it. | |
| I've sat there and looked at the slides myself. | |
| This is the presentation you're not allowed to challenge. | |
| This is the statement in part to which you refer, statement by the Kojo Institute. | |
| This incident is being weaponized to discredit and suppress the work of everyone committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. | |
| While the coverage by right-wing media of this controversy is disappointing and led to our organization and team members receiving threats and vitriol online, hello, welcome to Richard's World. | |
| We will not be deterred from our work in building a better society for everyone. | |
| So lesson not learned, not learned at all. | |
| And has Kiki spoken to the free press at all? | |
| Has there been any atonement or responsibility taken? | |
| No, none that I'm aware of. | |
| Publicly, she's, I think there was a protest actually a couple of weeks ago by a group called Parents of Black Kids, something like that. | |
| And they essentially said that she's a victim and she's being tarred by right-wing elements. | |
| And This is disinformation, misinformation, all of the usual boilerplate stuff that they would use to try to discredit what happened. | |
| So, unfortunately, what's happening is that his name is, you know, after his death is being smeared. | |
| This is exactly what Richard feared when he was alive, that people would not, people would, would distort what happened during the training session. | |
| And this is why, you know, we really wanted to provide the audio recordings, because it's one thing to read an excerpt to text that is in the lawsuit. | |
| And that itself makes for horrific reading. | |
| But it's quite another to actually listen to the audio recordings and actually get a sense of the tone, you know, and her laughter, her laughing when she calls him a weed and that when she refers to him as a weed and that her, you know, that how lucky she felt that an example just showed up and she couldn't believe her luck. | |
| And the pilot. | |
| She laughed at him. | |
| Yeah, she mocked him. | |
| And so the audio recordings are chilling and they're powerful. | |
| And I'm so glad that I was able to share that, that we at the free press provided that, embedded that in our story. | |
| There are more audio recordings on my Twitter thread where I talk about the story that are these recordings. | |
| Here's the thing. | |
| So we talked about how, yes, everybody's different. | |
| Everybody's built differently. | |
| I mean, I've been through this washing machine and it's horrible, but I'm okay. | |
| Richard had a different experience. | |
| But here's the thing that we really need to worry about. | |
| It's being done to children. | |
| It's being done to very vulnerable children who are already unsteady emotionally, a lot of them. | |
| They're going through puberty, they're going through depression, they're addicted to social media, all the things that have been affecting depression, COVID of teenage girls, teenage boys, and they're being subjected to these kinds of trainings. | |
| I mean, they're bringing these into schools and subjecting children to them. | |
| And they're going through this. | |
| So it's like, good God, think of what could happen. | |
| Like parents need to stand up and say, Kiki will not be coming to our school. | |
| Kiki has a very checkered record. | |
| Kiki's behavior toward a good man very definitely appears to have played a role in his decision to take his own life. | |
| That's what happened here. | |
| That's the allegation, whether she wants to deal with it or not. | |
| And the answer is she doesn't. | |
| But like the fact that you guys are shining a light on this is what makes it so important. | |
| Did Richard himself say anything about it? | |
| Did he leave a note? | |
|
Parents Must Stand Up
00:09:00
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|
| Did he explain any of this? | |
| I'm told that he left a note, but we don't know the contents of the note that has not been released to the public or to anyone that I'm aware of. | |
| But he certainly spoke about what happened to him to everyone that he met. | |
| He was seen as someone who really wanted to, you know, this incident had affected him so much, but even prior to that, he was always looking to improve the education system, the public education system here. | |
| But post this incident, he was helping, he was doing more of that. | |
| And he would befriend people who were also in a similar battle, trying to improve the public education system. | |
| And anyone that he met, he spoke about the lawsuit. | |
| He spoke about what happened. | |
| He would, in fact, play the audio recordings to everybody that he met that he confided in. | |
| And it was certainly not something that he kept to himself. | |
| But deep down inside, I mean, even though he had a lot of supporters, it's important to emphasize that not one of those 200 people actually got up and defended him. | |
| And, you know, I sent out a call two weeks ago while writing the story. | |
| Please, if you were in that session with him, please reach out to me. | |
| I will protect your identity. | |
| I just want to know what happened. | |
| Can you corroborate what happened? | |
| And not a single person to this day has reached out to me. | |
| And, you know, they're ashamed. | |
| And you said earlier, you made a very good point about, you know, it's time for people to stand up and say, that's it. | |
| We're not going to entertain the likes of Kojo Institute entering our schools and so on. | |
| And that's a very important point, Megan, because this is something that I've been thinking about. | |
| People claim that they want things to change, but ultimately they're cowardly and don't want to speak up because they're afraid of losing their jobs. | |
| They're afraid of losing their pensions. | |
| They're afraid of losing their reputation or their friends or being unfriended on Facebook. | |
| But, you know, what ends up happening is that they end up perpetuating the system. | |
| The fact that not a single educator, and these are people who are helping shape young minds, they're supposed to be cultivating courage in our young people. | |
| They're supposed to be cultivating critical thinking in our young people. | |
| Not a single one of those people spoke publicly in defense of Richard Biltstow. | |
| Either they're true believers or they're just too afraid to speak up and they're very cowardly. | |
| I understand in part why they didn't do it in the moment because of her messaging. | |
| Her messaging was basically: if you say anything, you're on the wrong side. | |
| You're a racist. | |
| And so I can see a bunch of progressive Canadians sitting up there saying, well, I don't want to, then I look what she's doing to Richard. | |
| I don't want to be on the receiving. | |
| But there's no excuse for, and that's not an excuse. | |
| I just, I get why they didn't do it in the moment. | |
| But now to not speak out, now, to not come forward and say, I regret not defending Richard. | |
| I regret ceding the conversation to this nutcase who is up there hurting people with a completely racist, wrong-headed message. | |
| Here's one other thing she said that speaks to the sort of the shaming of people with a divergent viewpoint from one of the sessions. | |
| This is from after the first offense and exchange she had with Richard, I think in that third session, sought for. | |
| What is not your personal experience? | |
| Remember, as white people, there's a whole bunch going on that isn't your personal experience. | |
| It will never be. | |
| You will never know it to be so. | |
| You will never know it to be so. | |
| But so your job in this work, as white people, is to believe. | |
| And if what you want is clarification, ask for that. | |
| Truly, in truth, not with the foot in the yeah, but I'm going to tell you how you're wrong. | |
| It's the help me understand further, please, because I actually don't know. | |
| And so I think that one has to really question a number of things. | |
| I think this was a profound and appropriate teachable moment. | |
| Your job is to believe, period. | |
| She has the, she has cornered the market on truth because of her melanin. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| And what's really hard to believe is that she herself used to be a teacher at one point. | |
| And imagine imparting this kind of, you know, education to your students. | |
| It truly is quite disturbing. | |
| You know, Richard's, Richard's fault, you know, is that he was a gay man. | |
| He was white and he was pushing against this claim, not aggressively, very politely. | |
| And that's what got him into trouble. | |
| And that just is just tragic. | |
| Well, Kiki, I do not believe, madam, wherever you may be. | |
| I do not believe. | |
| I do not believe you. | |
| I do not believe that you spoke truth. | |
| And I will fight you if you come within 10 feet of any organization that my children or my friends or I am a part of. | |
| And I recommend everyone listening to me do the same. | |
| You should pay attention. | |
| Kojo Institute. | |
| And it's not just Kojo, not at all. | |
| That was not the institute that came to my schools, but the ones that were at my schools, one was the DEI head and the other one at our girls' school. | |
| I'm trying to remember the name. | |
| It was very, very, oh, God, it's Pollyanna. | |
| Pollyanna was the sort of the approach on the DEI there. | |
| And they brought in another group to do DEI training who said the same kind of stuff. | |
| So you have to stay vigilant on it. | |
| Last question, though, Rupa, that I understand there was some investigation ordered by the education minister there. | |
| I mean, will there be any accountability here? | |
| I hope so. | |
| I certainly hope so. | |
| The school board itself has announced a couple of weeks ago that they were going to be launching an investigation into what happened at the DEI session. | |
| The Minister of Education in the province where I live has announced and where all of this happened, has announced an investigation as well. | |
| I truly hope that we get to the bottom of this and really try to do justice by Richard, you know, because what happened to him was completely avoidable. | |
| It was absolutely tragic. | |
| It destroyed, you know, what was done to him, not what happened to him, what was done to him. | |
| And it destroyed his life. | |
| And, you know, and now you have people, friends of Kojo already smearing him after his death and claiming that the DEI trainer is the actual victim. | |
| It's an upside-down world. | |
| It makes me want to go to one of these trainings. | |
| I could have some fun with this woman. | |
| I really, I would love to get in her face. | |
| I would. | |
| I'd love to sit there saying you're full of shit. | |
| You've hurt a lot of people. | |
| This is a bunch of nonsense. | |
| These are racist lies. | |
| You're a racist, Kiki. | |
| I mean, like, if you are forced to be subjected to this by your company or your school or your kid is, and you can't manage to pull them, then arm them with facts. | |
| Arm them with actual comebacks to the nonsense that this woman spews. | |
| And I think more and more people see that those of us who challenge this nonsense are in the right. | |
| Black, white, whatever. | |
| I mean, more and more people at our school, our boys' school in New York, when we sort of formed an underground group to push back on this nonsense, some of the most outspoken people about it were black families who were like, this is bullshit. | |
| We disagree with all of this. | |
| And they were completely aligned with all of us on the harm that was being done with this messaging. | |
| But you don't know if you sit there in silence with your tail between your legs. | |
| Thank you for calling attention to this. | |
| Love the free press. | |
| Everyone can check it out at thefb.com. | |
| More and more great journalism there. | |
| Thank you. | |
| All the best. | |
| Come back anytime, Rupa. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Megan. | |
| And I hope all of you pay attention and have a wonderful weekend. | |
| Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. | |
| No BS, no agenda, and no fear. | |
|
No BS No Agenda Fear
00:00:51
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