I am currently a senior in high school. The particular school I go to is very lienient in terms of dress codes, and things like that. Well, this year they are enforcing a new policy, and we have encorperated a dress code into the new handbook. In this handbook they have stated that “No offensive clothing can be worn.” This means that things like swasticas and confederate flags have been outlawed. This is becoming a porblem for many of the students here, as I live in the mountains of North Carolina, southern pride can be a pretty big thing at scome times. Kids have been sent home for wearing the flag on shirts, and hats. More recently, however, people have been putting flags in the back of their trucks, and parading up and down the parking lots. This has caused very mixed emotions.
From my point of view, the flag is offensive. It disgusts me to see it. But, this does not mean that the flag can be deemed offensive. A petition has been circulating around the school, and 5 african americans have signed it, basically saying that the flag doesn’t offend them. That is all fine and dandy. This morning though, the “rednecks” (as they have been called here at my school) held a protest, a peaceful one, I might add, in the lobby of our school saying that they should be able to have the flag. The 4 ring-leaders we suspended for 10 days. 10 days!!!. This was merely a peaceful protest, but I have a feeling that the adminstrative offices want to get those kids outta here. I guess I am looking for everyone’s view on this subject. Doesn’t wearing the confederate flag fall under the first amendment? Doesn’t this whole issue go back to the Tinker Case in the 60s(??)? Is it truely wrong to wear a rebel flag… it seems to be more southern heritage than a racist thing…
You need to remember that first amendment freedom of speech is not limitless. The government cannot outright outlaw Confederate Flags or swasticas or most anything else of this nature. The government can ban such things from their property however. This is what your school has done and it is perfectly within its rights to do so. To take an extreme example if you were a KKK member you’d be free to burn a cross in your own backyard (assuming it didn’t violate some fire code regulations) but if you burn that cross on school property you can expect to get in trouble for it.
That said your school and its policies are a reflection of the community it is in (and to a lesser extent a reflection of North Carolina). I assume there is a school board that answers to the parents (or voters) in your area. As long as they comply with state regulations they have latitude in the policies they set for their school district. Your principal has to answer to that school board.
It is possible that the community at large decided that they no longer wanted the Confederate Flag displayed in school. If the principal acted unilaterally and pissed off the community get your parents and other voters to lobby the school board. Unfortunately, as students mostly under the age of 18, you have no real power (at least not directly…as mentioned before kids can kick up a stink that may motivate those who can do something to take action). Student government is a joke where the adults let the kids play at having power without actually having any. I know this reality stings when you’re a teenager but it’s the hand you’re dealt so you have to play them.
As for the students getting suspended for 10 days for a peaceful protest I think that is ridiculous. If anything the students were exercising some of their most basic rights as American citizens and I would think the school would encourage them to flex their muscle in such a manner. In keeping with the powerless student government notion the school could allow the students to play out their schtick without actually having to change anything. School officials could encourage debate among the student body and allow the student government to come up with its own resolution which school officials would duly consider (and ignore). That whole process would, IMO, be very educational for the students. You might learn something about yourself as well as gain a better understanding of the issues at stake and how your school community thinks. You might even surprise yourselves.
In my personal observations such things as this often seem to be bigger than they actually are because of a VERY vocal minority (the squeaky wheel gets the grease sort of thing). As the debate moved among the student body you might find that banning the confederate flag from school grounds has broad support. You might find that most don’t like the confedearte flag but don’t like their rights restricted and then emabrk on a discussion of what lines are appropriate to draw. You might find that there is broad support for displaying the confederate flag in which case you will find that students don’t have any real power on their own.
All of that said I think that the school’s prohibition on displaying the confederate flag and the like is acceptable. That some students see the flag as a point of pride misses the point. Some see it as a symbol of oppression. Take a swastika for example. While it may not bother 90% of the school population (although it should) put yourself in the shoes of being the one jewish student at that school.
School has to be a place of inclusion and such hate symbols can only serve to make the school uncomfortable for some students. There is no need for them to learn under those conditions…high school is tough enough.
This kind of question has more aspects than a cat has hair.
Flags have often been termed “symbolic speech.” Under our Constitution and First Amendment thereto, speech is highly protected. However, speech can be regulated as to time, place and manner, and it can be prohibited when it is likely to incite IMMEDIATE violence. It’s quite legal to e-mail 1000 friends saying “I think we should kill all police.” (Stupid, but legal. A detailed conspiracy plan is NOT legal, however.) It’s NOT legal to stand in front of an agitated and emotional mob, point at the police, and scream “Kill the Police NOW!”
If there were no prior incidents of violence provoked by display of the COnfederate flag at the school, it’s probably not possible for the school to argue that it is prohibiting speech under the “incitement to riot” analysis. As to the argument that the Confederate flag is offensive to some, I quite agree. But the cure for speech with which you do not agree is not to silence the speaker (or in this case, the T-shirt wearer). It is to present the opposing viewpoint.
Rather than prohibiting Confederate flags, your school might better choose to present an assembly program which shows the history and consequences of slavery, the connections between that practice and the Civil War, and the fact that most so-called “Southern heritage” websites are usually two mouseclicks away from really ugly, stomach-churning, venomously racist websites. I like to think that the average kid who thinks he’s defending his Southern heritage might not be so fast to wave his Stars’n’Bars if he saw the evil people who have also adopted it as their symbol.
My relatives are Southerners. With the exception of one, now-deceased, great uncle who I strongly suspect was in the KKK, most of them are far more at ease with, and had less trouble adapting to integration than my Northern friends. Maybe that’s because they thought the South’s past wasn’t as important as its present and future.
Sorry AuntPam but I think your analysis of the first amendment is incomplete.
You are correct as far as it goes. We need a lawyer here to confirm this but I thought there were some exceptions made for places like schools. The problem lies in the fact that the students are, for the most part, required to attend school. They can’t simply go somewhere else or change the channel to avoid something they disagree with. As a result I believe there is more latitude for restricting speech in such situations.
In addition the notion of simply offering the opposing viewpoint to speech you disagree with looks good on paper but doesn’t work so easily in practice. Imagine you are the one and only jew in a school populated by skinheads. Exactly how far do you suppose the jewish person would get in offering their opposing viewpoint? Even if the jewish student had the brass balls required to stand-up for him/herself in this situation how effective do you suppose their message would really be in such an environment?
I find the Confederate Flag a repugnant symbol, and no matter what its defenders say it is impossible to separate the so-called ‘southern heritage’ aspect of the flag from the racism that is represents in the minds of so many people. If you want an interesting (and at times very funny) insight into the way that the Confederacy is remembered in the South, see Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War.
I do, however, support the right of the four students in your school to protest against the decision, and believe that their suspension (in the apparent absence of any violence or prohibited conduct) is inexcusable. What i find interesting, however, is the suggestion by Whack-a-Mole that
. Evidence from cities such as Seattle, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., over the past couple of years seems to indicate that protest is fast losing its status as a basic right in the US, and that there are plenty of heavy-handed cops willing to speed this process along. And don’t come back with the ridiculous argument that the protesters were violent and deserved what they got - the violent element constituted a tiny minorty in all those cases.
Good luck at your school, Evnglion - if everyone else there is putting as much thought into the issue as you are (not likely, i realise) then it may all turn out ok.
One thing needs to be considered here. The wearing of the Confederate battle flag is a long standing Southern custom and tradition. Folks have been wearing t-shirts, jackets and caps with the rebel flag ever since I can remember, and naturally a lot of kids have worn such things to school. Up to the last couple of years or so, there’s never been a fuss. And now, suddenly, Southern kids and their parents are being told they can’t display the symbol of their ethnicity in a public place, i.e. the schools they support with their taxes. They don’t see a similar ban on on other such symbols, e.g. “X” t-shirts or caps (although that fad is now long over).
If you want to uproot a long standing tradition such as that, you’d better have a damn good reason for it. And “Somebody might be offended” just isn’t good enough.
Let’s face it. The flag-banners aren’t tying to ban the rebel flag because it’s inciting violence. They’re trying to ban the rebel flag because it offends them.
It’s just another case of political correctness running amok.
Unless the school administration can prove that the school’s immediate situation is such that the display of the flag is likely to spark immediate, large scale violence(and I don’t mean one or two isolated incidents), then the flag ought to be tolerated. And even when a ban is clearly necessary, it should only be temporary. If they want to place a permanent ban on any symbol, they should place a permanent ban on all symbols.
And yes, I know many people view the Confederate as a “symbol of hate.” But the vast majority of people who display the flag with the St. Andrews cross certainly don’t see it that way, and many people view the American flag as a symbol of racism and oppression, too. I’ve a got an ugly feeling that if the day ever comes when I can’t fly my flag, you won’t be able to fly yours either.
It only stands to reason that “…the vast majority of people who display the flag with the St. Andrews cross certainly don’t see it that way [as a symbol of hate]…” I don’t suppose you’ll be seeing many balck people displaying that flag however because they generally DO see it that way.
Slavery was also once a long standing Southern custom and tradition. Jim Crow laws were a Southern tradition. Just because something has been done a certain way for a long time does not automatically mean that it should continue.
If that is true then it is wrong. I agree that if the school is going to ban the Confederate Flag and swaticas then “X” hats and their like should be banned as well.
In some parts of the south, the wearing of bedsheets and white hoods is also a part of ‘tradition’; i suppose you’re going to suggest they adopt that as school uniform now?
Not everything is about ‘rights’. As many conservatives are only too fond of pointing out when the subject of conversation is welfare recipients or single mothers or one of the other assorted ‘evils’ of modern America, with rights come responsibilities.
Is it not too much to ask that people refrain from doing something that causes other people grief, especially when not doing that thing is such a small sacrifice? I am a committed atheist, but i don’t go around with a t-shirt on saying “Christian beliefs are irrational,” even though that’s what i believe. And one reason i don’t is that i have no particular desire to offend a bunch of people who are, in general and as individuals, doing me no harm, and whose lives are probably enriched considerably by their beliefs. It’s called CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS, and is the opposite of the selfish, “fuck you” attitude displayed in your post.
Maybe if you could feel some measure of the fear and pain that the Confederate Flag elicits from some black Americans you might have more empathy. I don’t pretend to know this fear myself (i’m white), but maybe a short account from the Horwitz book i mentioned in my last post will give you some sense of it.
Horwitz describes a town meeting in Guthrie, Kentucky, to discuss the issue of the Confederate Flag, after a white man had been shot by a black man for flying the flag [an inexcusable act of violence, in my belief], and talks about the general hatred and animosity shown by the whites at the meeting, and their refusal to see how flying the flag might offend some people. Horwitz then describes a black woman’s reaction to the meeting:
Think about that last sentence next time you want to point out that the Confederate flag is just “a long standing tradition.”
You are comparing apples and oranges. The display of a symbol is not in any way the same as holding another human being in bondage, nor is the wearing of a cap with a Confederate battle flag to be compared with a lynching.
Tradition and custom are important to human beings. Traditions and customs have a great deal to do with our sense of identity, both as individuals and as members of a community that stretches beyond the present back into the past and forward into the future. If you claim the right to use the power of the state to abolish a tradition, you had better have a damn good reason for doing so, and “It hurts my feelings” doesn’t qualify.
If that is true then it is wrong. I agree that if the school is going to ban the Confederate Flag and swaticas then “X” hats and their like should be banned as well. **
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Well, okay, then. I am very gratified here. While we appear to have strong, conflicting feelings about the symbolism of the Confederate battle flag, we seem to agree on a couple of basic points, to wit: (1.) A specific symbol should only be banned in a public school on a temporary basis, and only when the situation is such that the display of that symbol is highly likely to lead to immediate violence, and (2.) No permanent ban on a symbol should be tolerated in a public school unless there is a general permanent ban on all such symbols.
The flag of the Federal Government, AKA the Stars and Stripes, is much more racist than the Confederate Battle flag. Its the Federal Government that mandates racism via it’s "Affirmative Action laws. Its the Federal Government that has a racist immigration policy. If that was my kids school that had a policy against “disruptive symbols”, then I’d go to that school every morning and create a disturbance around the flagpole, til they took that racist symbol down.
If you want to get int the argument that affirmative action is racism, you might want to start a new thread in ‘Great Debates’ - i think you’ll get a lot of action on that one.
Yes, you’re quite right. Not everything is about rights. Someone else has already pointed out that no right or liberty is absolute and unlimited, not even the right to wear your favorite T-shirt to school. But rights are not to be abrogated lightly, and when you demand that Southerners not be allowed to display a Confederate battle flag in a public school for which their taxes pay, you must necessarily ask yourself whether or not the situation is such that a compelling reason exists for doing so.
But what if you were an atheist who demands that Christians not be allowed to wear necklaces with crosses on them on school property or to openly carry Bibles on campus because you find them “disturbing and threatening?” Or should Christians demand that cars with Darwin fish symbols not be allowed to park in the school parking lot because they feel “disturbed and threatened” by them?
This is nothing but a vicious, personal attack. Moderators, please?
Perhaps !!!CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS!!! also means allowing others to display political or religious symbols which you personally find offensive.
Oh, of course, that’s right, the whole problem is that I’m just a stupid, unimaginative clodhapper who can’t possibly understand the thoughts and feelings of others.
And yet you don’t hesitate to appoint yourself to be the spokesman for millions of black Southerners.
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… but maybe a short account from the Horwitz book i mentioned in my last post will give you some sense of it.
Horwitz describes a town meeting in Guthrie, Kentucky, to discuss the issue of the Confederate Flag, after a white man had been shot by a black man for flying the flag [an inexcusable act of violence, in my belief], and talks about the general hatred and animosity shown by the whites at the meeting, and their refusal to see how flying the flag might offend some people. Horwitz then describes a black woman’s reaction to the meeting:
Oh, please. I am immensely skeptical that the average black is such a neurotic weakling that the mere sight of a Confederate battle flag traumatizes him.
[SARCASM] Oh, thank you for opening my eyes! Not once in my entire life have I ever pondered the thoughts and feelings of black people! Until this very moment when you wrought this epiphany upon me, not once have I ever been aware that anyone other than white Southerners exist anywhere upon the planet! Bless you for sharing your vastly supererior moral insight and depth of awareness with me! What ever would we poor ignorant crackers down here do if we did not have such marvelously superiour beings such as yourself to show us the error of our ways![/SARCASM]
I’ve already read the Horwitz book, thank you. And unlike you, Horwitz actually made an effor to understand white Southerners.
That the displaying of the CBF {Confederate Battle Flag} is a long standing tradition is not quite true. Sure after the war, especially starting around 1880, a lot of southern soldiers started displaying war momentos. Many of these included battle flags. For the most part these were regimental colors. So there was no single symbol. The CBF was not widely adopted until the 1950s.
The recently changed flag of Georgia was adopted in 1954. And AFAIK was the first governmental display which included the CBF. This of course was the same year that desegregation was introduced. Coincidental that. To be fair there is some evidence that the original sponser of the bill was simply trying to raise awareness of the need to preserve civil war artifacts. However regardless of the original sponser’s intent, the CBF became the symbol of opposition to the civil rights movement in general and and the desegrigation movement in particular. General adoption quickly followed.
Frankly I think it is a shame that both the CBF and the Swastika have their current associations. Both are in my opinion attractive flags. However given the association with racism, I believe the school is making the appropriate decision in this case.
The official display of the Confederate battle flag dates only from the 1950’s. The unofficial display of the Confederate battle flag goes all the way back to the days following the Civil War. We are not talking about the * offficial* display of the flag by the State. We are talking about the unoffcial display of the flag by individuals. Some people here seem to be saying that white Southern kids should not be allowed to wear caps and T-shirts or to carry bookbags and other parapenalia which display the Confederate battle flag. The only thing I am arguing here is that, unless it can be shown that the display of the Confederate battle flag is likely to provoke immediate violence, then children and teenagers should not prohibited from wearing in public schools T-shirts, caps and sweatshirts or carrying such paraphenalia as bookbags or knapsacks which display the Confederate battle flag.
What we are talking about here is whether or not the power of the State should be used to suppress the display of the Confederate battle flag in the absence of compelling evidence that widespread violence would result from such a display.
And i suppose that the kids and parents asociated with the school who do want the Confederate Flag removed are not taxpayers who also fund the public schools? But there are taxpayers, and taxpayers, right Lonesome?
The idea that we should have blanket rules for cases like this, rather than judge each one on its individual merits, is the sort of uncritical thinking conservatives seem to love. Everything’s black and white. Personally, as i said in another post, i disagree with the censorship of the Confederate Flag. All i am asking is that you show some empathy. In one post you said:
but you have yet to show any respect for people who might have this view, instead chosing to do nothing but rant about ‘rights’.
That’s funny, i thought it was an attack on your attitude, as i said in the post, not on your person. Isn’t it funny how the person who receives a message sometimes views it differently from the person who communicates it? Remind you of another situation?
I fully agree, and am willing to support an outcome where the rights and responsibilities of all are respected in some sort of compromise. You, on the other hand, seem to prefer the all or nothing approach.
Remember, i didn’t say that, you did. But that was not what i was implying. I was just saying that your arguments to date had shown no evidence of even trying.
I do nothing of the sort. I was just trying to give an example of the sort of thing (there are other examples in the Horwitz book, and in many other works) that has informed my own thinking on the subject.
Now who’s appointing himself a spokesman for southern blacks?
This “woe is me”, self-pitying rant is a convenient cover for the fact that, while you may indeed have spent much time thinking about “the thoughts and feelings of black people,” no indication of such thinking has yet appeared on this thread.
You’re right that Horwitz did attempt to understand southern whites, and he did a very good job of displaying the complexities that surround these issues. But attempting to understand southern whites in general is a difficult thing (after all, i’m sure they’re not all the same, and dn’t all think the same way); all i’m trying to do right now is understand the person with whom i’m debating, and so far your argument has been little other than a diatribe with little attempt to concede even the possibility that opposing viewpoints may have some validity.
Oh, yeah, sure! You’re trying SO HARD to understand! So tell me, what exactly do you think I’m trying to say here? It seems to me all I’m trying to say is that Southern kids shouldn’t be prohibited from wearing T-shirts, caps and jackets or from carrying bookbags and knapsacks with a Confederate battle flag to public schools unless compelling evidence can be supplied which shows that the display of such emblems is likely to result in immediate, massive violence. So tell me. What am I really saying? You know my own mind such much better than I do.
Exactly what is it about a T-shirt with a rebel flag on it which horrifies you so much? Why do you feel so threatened by the sight of a fifth grader with a book bag that has the Saint Andrews cross on it wearing a T-shirt adorned with Robert E. Lee’s picture? Are you really such a weakling that such visions as this reduce you to helpless terror? Are you so horrified by such a sight? Are you really so frightened by me and my people that you absolutely cannot stand to see such a thing in a public school? Why do we terrify you so much? Are we really such ogres?
Do you really hate us that much? Are we really that frightening to you? Do you really mean to say that we reduce you to such helpless paroxyms of terror that you must use the power of the State to keep us from sending our ten year old children to school with a lunch box that has a rebel flag on it? Are we really such monsters? Did we really come so close to winning the war that a hundred and thirty six years later our flag still makes you shit your pants?
Do we really scare you that much?
Are we never to be regarded as your brothers in a constitutional republic, or are we always to be cast in the outermost darkness as trash unfit to share the common light of day with you?
** Do you really hate and fear us that much?** Do you really hate and fear us so much that our children must not be allowed to wear T-shirts displaying the cross of Saint Andrews when they attend a public school?