It seems to me that you implied that wearing offensive T-shirts was either the near equivalent of, or leading down the slippery slope to, violence.
With all the Tea Party bashing going on these days, it sounded like the same argumeant was being used against these kids.
I would like to address what they actually did (Trollish wearing of T-shirts?) instead of worrying about the worst case scenario just to justify stifling speech we don’t agree with.
I agree. But some folks disagree. At least, they think this might have been an offensive time to wear what would normally be nonoffensive.
But my point was that it’s a bit of a stretch to imply that someone willing to be an ass and wear a shirt they expect will offend somebody else, will also be willing to club baby seals, or plant IED’s.
The problem with your argument is, the vice principal told the boys that they COULD wear their patriotic T shirts on any other day of the year, just not “Cinco de Mayo”.
In other words, the boys were asked to leave school for wearing clothing that did NOT violate the school’s dress code.
Some of the boys wore flag bandanas on their head depicting the American flag, and when the vice principal asked the boys to remove their head bandanas, the boys complied. There is a school dress code policy that states students may not wear headbands.
The schools bigger problem right now is, they discriminated against the boys because they arbitrarily applied the “no flag colors” to these students only. The students wearing Mexican flag clothing were not asked to leave school.
Although this is the Pit, I’ve never seen your name before so I’ll resist the urge to call you a complete twat as I point out that you completely mis-interpreted what I was saying. I’ll try and explain now, going very slowly and using small words.
A person doing demolitions work is not “creating”.
People clubbing baby seals are not showing compassion for the baby seals.
People crashing a Gay Pride parade while hoisting a burning effigy of a homosexual who was beaten, tortured and then put on display tied to a fence before finally succumbing to his injuries are NOT showing support for gays.
It’s optimistic, I know, but if you’re still with me at this point, mlees, perhaps you are now able to almost grasp my point: Five people all acting alike are not displaying their “individuality”.
Bullshit.
This little fracas isn’t about free speech; it’s about 5 kids wanting to see how far they could push before they got pushed back. It’s about 5 douchebags who wanted to see if they could start a fight but not be the first person to throw a punch.
Except it wasn’t a “normal day”, was it? It was a special day: Cinco de Mayo, the 5th of May. What an ass this kid is. I bet he’s tried to use the defense “But I wasn’t actually touching him! And he HIT me!”
And, it’s about a whole bunch of assholes doing their best to throw all the right buzzwords out there in such a big agglomerated mess that most people won’t hear anything or see anything beyond a headline or a sound blurb so tight that all they’ll know is:
White Kids Can’t Bring U.S.A. Flags To School Because of Mexicans
So while we’re here, let me pit all the fucking asshats who are working to perpetuate this aspect of this stupid petty little story about teenaged bigots who missed part of a school day because of their own actions. Fuck you, douchebags.
The school admins have great leeway to act to stop or prevent disruptions. If the majority of students are wearing Mexican flag shirts on this one day, then a small number of students who not only refuse to wear the ascribed garb, but deliberately wear clothing designed or intended to mock, demean and denigrate the majority are not just exercising their right to self-expression but were seen by the administration of the school as being deliberately inflammatory.
The truth is, if any of those 5 kids had gotten in a fight, most Americans would scorn the CdM kids for celebrating a Mexican holiday while in America (never mind the number of non-Irish people who wear green, etc. for St. Pat’s Day). And FoxNews et. al. would have run with it on that angle, instead of the “sent home for a few hours” tragedy that they are trying to push now.
But it would have been the school that would have been financially and legally responsible for the situation, not the ignorant and unwashed populace that only hears, sees & believes the made-up headline from my last post.
Of course, you could point out that eventually the I&U people would have coughed up coin in a lawsuit, and then they would have bitched that the kids should have been sent home, or that the school should “jus’ round up these Messkins and send them back to Africa”, since that would have solved the “problem” before it even began.
The truth is, there’s just no pleasing the ignorant. Even when they get what they want, they don’t know it. How could they?
This would be true if that had actually happened, but the American flag is so ridiculously far from a symbol designed to “mock, demean or denigrate” Mexican-Americans on Cinco de Mayo as to make the comparison ludicrous.
I’m not at all nationalistic or a flag worshipper by any stretch of the imagination, but if you take offense to someone wearing the American flag on a shirt under pretty much any circumstances I can think of, you are a retard. I highly doubt any of the Mexican-American students in that school are that retarded, but if they are, fuck 'em.
I’m saying that you don’t tell people not to wear American flags, regardless of what you believe their intentions are for doing so, any more than you tell them to stop drinking water or smiling.
The middle finger of my hand is not designed to mock, demean, denigrate, insult, or inflame, yet if I extend it solo to another person, they may in fact become angry or upset, and feel that I mocked, denigrated, insulted them.
However the gesture of extending the middle finger of your hand at someone is a common and well-known way of saying “fuck you” with no other real interpretation (at least here in the US), and it is most certainly intended as an insult.
On the other hand if someone looks at me and I hop up and down in place, it would be utterly unreasonable for them to decide that that meant “Valgard told me to go anally penetrate my mother” and react accordingly.
I am no flag-waving yahoo, far from it in fact, but I’m gonna say that wearing a t-shirt with an American flag on it is far closer to “hopping up and down” than flipping someone the bird on the Intentional Offensiveness Scale.
The school did the right thing. At my high school, a custodian wore a “World’s Greatest Grandpa” t-shirt on Secretary’s Day. Five students and two faculty members were killed in the ensuing melée.
And wearing a USA flag on a day when students had been told that it would be not just May 5th, but also Cinco de Mayo, a celebration of Mexico and it’s people, could be seen by some as a less common and less well-known way of saying “fuck you” to people celebrating Mexico, it’s peoples and cultures.
The fact that it might not have meant “fuck you” is immaterial, just as the fact that that could be a large burrito is immaterial to the bomb squad. They have to do their jobs, and for a large number of reasons built up over years of court cases, school admins mostly choose to err on the side of not having disruptions in schools.
When wearing an American flag to school in America is deemed incendiary, you’re on to a whole new galaxy of stupid. Tell me, are you the Emperor of this distant galaxy?
Sure there was a right choice, let the kids where the American flag. If the Mexican kids find it so offensive, give them a geography lesson on where Mexico is and a map on how to get there. If you were in another coun— er, galaxy, and the kids there were wearing the flag of their galaxy, do you think you’d have the right to be offended? That’s just douchebaggery. Though, in fairness, maybe in your galaxy douchbaggery is what gets you elected emperor.