At Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, CA, a controversy erupted on Cinco de Mayo when five male students showed up to school that day wearing clothing adorned with the American flag. Officials at the school (which has a large Mexican-American student population) deemed the garments "incendiary" and "disrespectful". The officials feared that displaying the flag would incite fights between Mexican-American students and their five peers. While the quintet were at brunch break (brunch break?!), the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove the American flag bandannas they were wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal's office (do not pass "Go", do not collect $200!) The students were told that if they returned to class with their American flag-adorned clothing, they would be suspended. To avoid suspension, the students went home for the day.Below is the story as reported by an NBC affiliate in the Bay area:
The following day, Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Wesley Smith said, "While campus safety is our primary concern and administrators made decisions yesterday in an attempt to ensure campus safety, students should not, and will not, be disciplined for wearing patriotic clothing." For more on the story, click here.
Although I think the five students wearing the American flag on Cinco de Mayo was their way of saying "How ya like me now?" to the Mexican-American students, so what! Forcing them to change or else get suspended was the wrong move to make. It looks to me like the school officials hid behind the "safety of the students" shield to cover their overly PC asses. It's not like the quintet wore clothing emblazoned with swastikas or that said "white power", it was the American flag!
Side note: When I checked out the Wikipedia page for Morgan Hill this afternoon, I found it interesting that the "Politics" section ended with the following: "Morgan Hill is known for its excessive love for America and the American flag." I'd love to know if this sentence was there prior to the Live Oak High School controversy.
18 comments:
I heard they were told they could wear the American flag any other day...just not on cinco de mayo. OK, then I guess if they want to play that way no one should be able to wear the Mexican flag on any other day except for cinco de mayo. What other country on the planet would you be punished for wearing that country's flag? What percentage of countries could you walk around with an American flag and not get any heat for it? To paraphrase Dennis Miller: "If you want to live in the melting pot...then MELT!"
I think both sets of students should be allowed to wear shirts with either the Mexican or American flag on them at any time.
One of the tenets of America is freedom of speech and I believe the school violated the students free speech. While schools can limit students free speech for certain reasons I don't believe in this instance that it was justified.
I do agree with this statement:"If you want to live in the melting pot...then MELT!"
Malcolm,
I totally agree! I'm all for cultural sensitivity, but not at the cost of free speech.
I fail to see why anyone would be offended by the shirts. If someone wears a shirt with the Mexican flag on the 4th of July, I would not be offended.
Three simple words say all that needs to be said: This is America.
Of course, I'll never let things go with three simple words.
This is part of a much larger problem in American culture. Being an "American" doesn't have quite the same significance to some that is used to. But being IN America certainly seems to be the ideal.
Folks familiar with the school and students claim these types of tensions never existed until that day. Then after, we see the students gathered in protest chanting "Mexico! Mexico!"
Why? To what end?
Only in America would people be told to give another country's victory billing over our own flag.
Two of the flag-wearing boys' mothers appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show and stated that their children often wear American flag clothing.
I'll go out on a limb and say this school doesn't allow kids to play dodge ball.
Dave: Live Oak High School's reaction to this was beyond silly. Regarding Dennis Miller's comment, I like to think of America as a tossed salad (in which the various ingredients complement the other) instead of a melting pot.
Teresa: The school definitely fumbled the ball on this. There are bound to be students who will wear American flag-adorned clothing to the school on Cinco de Mayo next year so it'll be interesting to see if the faculty handles it differently.
Trestin: I'm trying to see it from the perspective of the Mexican-American students, but I think they are being overly sensitive in this matter.
Josh: When I first heard about this story, I was wondering if any of the five students had worn U.S. flag-adorned clothing on non-Cinco de Mayo school days. Even if they didn't, what the school did was wrong.
Malcolm, this is what makes you my very favorite liberal blogger! This is fair-minded and, I think, spot on.
Oh! I forgot to mention the point about the boys purposefully wearing the flag shirts in response to the current political climate, I agree with you and think they did do it as a "thumb their nose" kind of gesture. The problem that I have with that is that wearing an American can, in anyone's wildest imagination and in America, be considered a way of thumbing their noses. That's like saying I'm going to thumb my noses at atheists and carry my bible to church. How is that harmful?
If there goal was to antagonize, they surely could have found more inflammatory images than the flag of their own country. That, I think, is the deeper meaning . . . that anyone who is IN this country can be "insulted" or upset or antagonized by the sight of an American flag. This is our real problem and the evidence that, as you note, PC culture has gone far too far.
Holy crud, sorry for the typos in there. :(
I keep thinking faster than I can type and then not proofreading.
Fuzzy: Thank you. I was going to legally change my middle name to "Fair", but it cost too much money. Besides, I love my actual middle name.
You raise a very good point about how the American flag is considered/used as a symbol of antagonism to some in this country. To find out which Americans are offended by the U.S. flag and why would make for an interesting documentary, town hall discussion, etc. It kinda reminds me of a scene in "Easy Rider" when a Southern redneck referred to Peter Fonda's character (Wyatt)as a "Yankee queer" because Wyatt had an American flag on his bike.
Well, I think that the progressive agenda explains a good part of the anti-American sentiment that is manifested in people, Americans, being "insulted" or "offended" by the American flag. The more you chip away at America, focus solely on her mistakes (both past and present), the more likely it is that people will pick up on that and begin to dislike, even feel ashamed of, their own country. It's not unimportant that Michelle Obama said that she was never in her adult life proud of her country . . . until another America-hating person, her husband, looked like he had a shot at becoming president. So he can "fundamentally transform" America from what it was (loathsome and shameful to them) to . . . well, something else. That's why we are on a path now to be undermined, to lose our position as global leader, to hand over that role to people (the Chinese, most likely, but they'll have to fight for the job) who do not respect human rights, who are truly and deeply racist, and who think nothing of imprisoning, executing, and even engaging in mass genocide to silence opposition. China, the richest country in the world (certainly not us any longer) sent $2 million to Haiti (their first donation was $1 million) . . . that's nothing. Several U. S. corporations (those despised big businesses) sent more than that individually! This is the brave new world of progressives. Enjoy!
Fuzzy: Thanks for "breakin' it down" for me. If I didn't know any better, I'd think your last comments were the transcript to your audition for a slot on Fox News. Who are you replacing? Glenn Beck? Megyn Kelly? :-)
If they're saying this, too, then obviously they are correct and don't need to be replaced.
As I've explained to you endlessly, Malcolm, dismissing something because "it sounds like [insert Fox personality here, yours is always Glenn, though sometimes you "mix it up" by replacing Rush with Megyn or O'Reilly]," but the shallow dismissal is still and will always be a thoughtless and intellectually dishonest way to engage in conversation. Or do you fall back on that sort of knee jerk leftie nonsense (frankly you can be far better than that) because you can't argue otherwise? Or are you going to say that this America, BO's stumbling weakened America that Americans themselves freely lash out at and express shame about, is the same as it was 40 years ago? Naw, you can't say that with any authority (except, of course, that the plight of the poor and of minorities is almost identical to 40 years ago, and in some areas--like welfare numbers, far far worse). . . much better to stick out your tongue (rhetorically) and say you heard it on "Faux."
*shakes head sadly*
Fuzzy: There are two reasons I responded to your rant in the manner I did:
1. Going off on progressives and the Obamas on this post was off-topic and out of line.
2. It was also an effort to get you to lighten up a bit. The "smiley face" at the end of my comments should have been the tip-off. You seem to take life and yourself way too seriously.
In your initial set of comments, you raised concerns about the U.S. flag being antagonistic to some in this country. I responded by saying it would be interesting to find out why people feel that way. It wasn't a question I was posing, it was just something for people to ponder. Instead, you took it as a cue to go to the section of town where the buses don't run. You already have two of your own blogs in which you trash President Obama/the left on a consistent basis. One would think those would be enough w/o you resorting to going into attack mode for no reason. Part of me is glad you did because you exposed yourself and what you revealed isn't pretty.
As they often do, your comments reek of the mentality that left=evil and right=good. That's one-dimensional thinking. You should know that I have no problem debating you. I've done it before and I'll continue to when the situation warrants it. However, when you pop off about things that have nothing to do with the topic of the post, you're wasting people's time. I'm afraid to ask what you think of the Mary J. Blige song "No Drama". Since it rhymes with Obama, I don't wanna risk setting you off. :-)
Oh and while I'm at it... childishly referring to President Obama as "BO"? Even if I disagree with much of what you write, I know you can do better than that. If the "BO" references aren't beneath you, they should be.
If you want to respond to these comments, you have my email address. :-)
Hmm...
I'm not interested in taking sides in the exchange, but I am interested to know what's childish about "BO"?
I fail to see how a blithe quip vocalizing an acronym is callow.
Maybe I'm missing something here.
B.O. as in "body odor" - he stinks? (I'm seriously laughing, though, but I AM childish!)
I've never heard it spoken. I've only read it and have always assumed it was "Bo" like the dog I suspect he BOastfully named after himself. lol
WOW! Sorry I missed this ...LOL!
Josh: That's a valid question. Because of Fuzzy's frequent use of the term, I asked her what it was all about. In addition to explaining that it was basically due to her negative feelings toward President Obama, she also referred me to a post she wrote last year in regards to terms used to refer to him. In one section, she said the following:
"What I like about "BO" is that it's just disrespectful enough to convey my . . . well, utter lack of respect, and it also evokes "B. O.", i.e. body odor, and this appeals to me because something is definitely smelly and rotten in Denmark."
This is why I feel the use of the term in this case is childish.
Pjazzy: I know you've been busy, so I thought I'd bring you up to speed. Even though the Fourth of July is several weeks away, it can never be too early for a little fireworks.
Ok, my take on the actions of the principal is that is what in NO way shape of form coming from a place of "being PC" In fact, I think what he did was pretty damned racist! He is ASSUMING that the Mexican students would be offended by an American flag. He is ASSUMING that the Mexican students would react in a violent manner. He is assuming a lot of negative things about the Mexican students in his school, imo.
Joanna: The school official's assumptions about the Mexican-American students bothered me as well. Although some (if not all) of them were upset about their classmates wearing the U.S. flag on Cinco de Mayo, there was no guarantee that they would react violently.
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