Hands up, anyone who believes that vowel-challenged high school principal Richard Bilkszto killed himself because he’d been “bullied” by a diversity trainer.
For those who understandably slept through it, Bilkszto was elevated to martyr status this week; portrayed by conservative pundits as a tragic victim of the woke mob, dead by his own hand in the name of justice, freedom and, er, Fuck Trudeau!
A principal with the Toronto District School Board for 24 years, Bilkszto retired in 2019, but continued working with the board on contract.
Earlier this year he sued the board, claiming his reputation had been “systematically demolished” during two anti-Black racism training sessions on Zoom in 2021. According to Bilkszto, when he challenged the black diversity trainer, she singled him out and accused him of supporting white supremacy.
In announcing Bilkszto’s death last week, his lawyer, Lisa Bildy (Franks passim) claimed the “stress and effects” of talking to the mean Black woman “plagued” Bilkszto until he “succumbed.”
Enter Jon Kay, to seize on Bilkszto’s death as a handy cudgel in his War on Woke.™
“After being falsely smeared as a white supremacist by a diversity trainer, Bilkszto committed suicide,” he wrote in Quillette, his whitey-righty pifflesheet.
Inconveniently for Kay, the Toronto Star obtained audio from the training sessions, revealing that the trainer, Kike Ojo-Thompson, was respectful of Bilkszto and never once uttered the hurtful and triggering words, “white supremacy.”
And as for blaming Bilkszto’s suicide on insensitive sensitivity trainers, Kay could inform himself on the subject by reading his own magazine. Quillette’s March 2019 edition included an essay from Louise Perry, headlined: “Time to Stop Using Suicide For Political Point-Scoring”:
“The fact is that suicide is an exceptionally complicated phenomenon. Some of the risk factors will come as no surprise: depression, addiction, psychosis, physical ill-health, personality disorders, trauma, bereavement, and extreme isolation all increase the likelihood that someone will make an attempt on their life.”
Bilkszto certainly had his share of isolation. He lived alone during the COVID lockdowns—no partner, no children, no sourdough—and by the time the pandemic ended, he’d gone well through the looking glass.
He joined the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), white-lives-matter organization that stands vigil against the trans agenda, critical race theory, etc., etc.
Bilkszto was the FAIR representative at a March 2022 conference for New Blue Ontario, Jim and Belinda Karahalios’ hard-right, anti-vax Very Silly Party.
The New Blue conference featured a confederacy of dunces and dipshits, including Theo Fleury, Sue-Ann Levy and “Dr.” Steve Turley, the Christian nationalist nutbag.
Bilkszto shared a stage with Richard Syrett, talk show host and flat-earth fantasist, sacked by CFRB years ago for his Barack Obama birther enthusiasms.
There has been some suggestion that Bilkszto’s involvement with the FAIR freakazoids, despite finally getting him out of the house, may have contributed to his decline and demise.
“Clearly he experienced mental anguish,” lefty hack Nora Loreto opined. “Did his work with [FAIR] bring him a modicum of mental peace? Or is this the story of a man who was exploited to promote an agenda and who was ultimately pushed over the edge?”
No one is suggesting, nor should they, that Kay fed Bilkszto’s paranoia. But by Kay’s own admission, he spoke regularly with Bilkszto over the past two years and Bilkszto often emailed him stories about other Canadians “who’d been targeted as heretics.”
And who better to opine on heresy than Mr. Dogwhistle Shampoo himself?
After all, Kay spent years researching crackpots and conspiracy theorists for his 2011 tome: Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Growing Conspiracist Underground.
Fast forward to 2023 and Kay now panders to some of the same people he condemned in his book, in which he observed that many in the conspiracy community subscribe to many whacko plots simultaneously: Jewish bankers run the world, UFO abductions, anti-vax, etc.
People in the anti-trans movement also subscribe to a multitude of conspiracies: Jewish bankers run the world, UFO abductions, anti-vax, etc.
All that research gives our Jon-Jon an insider’s edge over his Naugahyde-news competitors at the Western Standard, Rebel News and True North.
1 R Correction; Barack Obama 44th U.S. President
And a review has been launched by Ontario’s education minister
I see the same smirk on the face of SCOTUS honcho John Roberts as the picture displays…I call it “klansmirk”, because the same was displayed by those in the USA accused of KKK activities/murder.
Is there a mental condition connected to it?