Virginia Teacher Deletes Video, Asserts Students Following Directions Is Evidence Of Pervasive ‘White Supremacy’

A Virginia high school teacher offers another reminder that the supposed “anti-racists” are the real racists.

Josh Thompson, an English teacher at Blacksburg High School, was forced to delete a Tik Tok video after the reaction to his claim that making children behave in class is evidence of “white supremacy.”

In the video, Thompson criticized a state Department of Education program called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS.

The Education Department says PBIS is intended to teach and implement new techniques that emphasize “a positive approach to discipline” in an effort to curtail students’ disruptive behavior, and, accordingly, reduce office referrals and suspensions, both in and out of school.

According to the Center on PBIS, the program is three-tiered, with some basic practices applied to all students, and some that are implemented for students who present together behavioral challenges.

As an example of what PBIS is designed to impart, the instructional material about teaching “respect” features a skit involving a child who is going to write a joke on a restroom stall. The teacher then asks what should a student who encounters this do: give him a bigger pen, offer a dictionary so he spells the words correctly, or encourage him not to do it out of respect for the building. Kids who answer correctly then earn a “gotcha being good” pass in front of their classmates.

But to Thompson, PBIS is evidence of “white supremacy with a hug.”

The program is “things like making sure that you’re following directions, and making sure that you’re sitting quietly, and you are in your seat — and all these things that come from white culture,” he said in the video, according to an account by the New York Post.

“The idea of just sitting quiet and being told stuff and taking things in in a passive stance is not a thing that’s in many cultures,” the teacher asserted in the video. “So if we’re positively enforcing these behaviors, we are by extension positively enforcing elements of white culture. Which therefore keeps whiteness at the center, which is the definition of white supremacy.”

Thompson’s episode recalled a controversy that erupted last summer when a poster once crafted by the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History emerged.

The poster maintained that behaviors or traits such as self-reliance, emphasizing the scientific method, the “Protestant work ethic,” punctuality, and respecting authority were all evidence of “whiteness.”

Thompson’s comments recalled President George W. Bush’s reference to the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” and some were not pleased.

On Twitter, a woman with an account named “Miss LeFlore,” tweeted, “I’m a Black teacher. Any notion that behaving and following directions are inherently white traits disgusts me. It highlights the bigotry of low expectations that permeates the Education system. Black and Brown students are capable and should not be held to separate standards.”

Another Twitter user called sub7 added, “I love how the far-left woke activists are more racist than the far-right white supremacists now.”

The school district, however, stood by Thompson and, somewhat ironically, gave no indication that he would be disciplined.

“A teacher is entitled to their personal belief regarding any division program,” the district told the Post.

“The statements made by this teacher do not reflect our PBIS program or the behavioral expectations that we have of students in our schools.”

Support journalism by clicking here to our gofundme or sign up for our free newsletter by clicking here

Android Users, Click Here To Download The Free Press App And Never Miss A Story. It’s Free And Coming To Apple Users Soon.