You recall this time? I don’t think so. We wouldn’t ever have needed a Supreme Court if this was so.
Maybe it’s what your mom would say, but plenty of people get racism with their mother’s milk. Your take on this is naive. I won’t say disingenuous because maybe you really believe this stuff about the inflexible, simple LAW and Mama, who is pure, good, and all-knowing. But for a lot of people, it ain’t reality, and I do hope you know that.
<spit-take>
Schools do, the police do not. It was on the school to do something, they did what they assumed to be enough, only it wasn’t enough for the community, and the community let them know. Seems standard to me. It’s up to the court to say they wasn’t protected speech though
Yep, the school can ban them, and they can enforce the ban on their students. But. Schools don’t make rules for everyone else, my point in saying that was to convey that even though the school (rightly should) ban the display of nooses as free speech, that does not mean that speech is not protected by the constitution.
With all of that said though, the “substantial disruption” such a thing would likely cause assumes that a person viewing such a display would act irrationally and perhaps violently by default. It is to say; “you can’t wear the rebel flag because this group says it is offensive” ok, to them it is, but the whole basis of free speech rests on the fact that one person or a group of people bound only by the laws of the land, (as opposed to the laws of a school or other institution) can say the most unpopular, indeed most vile thing or display a symbol that is demeaning to this cause or that ideal, without fear of repercussion, and indeed, if they do so and are assaulted or otherwise injured for it, that despite their status in society as absolute douchebags, they become martyrs for their own cause because someone failed to control their own anger.
Words are words, the power is not in the speaker but in the listener.
Symbols are symbols, the power is not in the symbol or he that displays it, but in the viewer.
I suppose you would be fine with a black guy getting the same treatment from six whites he was taunting with shouts of “Rednecks! Crackers! White Devils!”, then? No real moral dilemma there, just “Darwin in action”, right?
But that’s different. Duh.
I would be fine with the perpetrator of the beer bottle incident getting attempted murder charges. People have died from taking just one blow to the head. Even if you don’t die, you can wind up with brain damage.
How so?
The principal recommended expulsion but he was overruled by the superintendent and the school board. They insisted it was a harmless prank. Clearly a case of upper management and politicians interfering in the running of the school, when the people who work in the situation every day know better.
buttonjockey, you can argue with me about the Constitution all you want, but the fact is, in school, kids do not have the same free speech rights that adults do out in public. The nooses were not “protected speech” in this situation, and that’s pretty much the end of that line of argument.
There really is no equivalent way for the situation to work in reverse because the history and still current status quo don’t allow for any perfect symmetry. A white guy who gets upset about being called “redneck” or “cracker” is just a douchebag. You may whine about the double-standard if you wish, but it’s a double-standard which is perfectly justified in my opinion.
Incidentally, I am white so accusations in this thread that I am some kind of anti-white “racist” are absurd. I suppose the accusations of “white guilt” will come next. That’s just as ridiculous.
You know, to seem degree I understand the historical inequity between the races, but in all of my life I have known only three or four whites who I would consider capable of outright racial abuse (I mean "willing to beat a black person up simply because they were black) – I stopped one of them from doing so when I was in Junior High. On the other hand, I have known dozens of black guys who bragged about beating white people up. On the whole, (from my experience at least) the current generation of black people seem much more violence-prone towards whites than vice-versa.
I used to be very liberal about race, but my experiences at a predominantly black university, along with some friends getting treated very badly by blacks (they were very liberal about race as well – not any more!), changed my mind about a lot of things.
The fact that the school dropped the ball is scarcely in question, and that upper management interceded where they didn’t HAVE to, also a given. It was their call to make, and they made it, now they’re left to deal with the public fall out of 20 or so thousand people protesting the supposed injustice because they didn’t stifle it when the chance was there to do so.
The end of the line to that specific argument however is on the front steps of the Supreme Court. If you’re using Morse v. Frederick as a yardstick, you’re only seeing part of the issue (in that Morse dealt specifically with illegal drug use and the promotion thereof, rather than unpopular political speech) this act, as despicable as it was, can be more adequately addressed under Tinker v. DesMoines, which held basically
which they (meaning the administration) did not think it did.
If they had their heads out of their asses, and put a vocal stop to this nonsense there probably woudn’t BE a Jena 6, which in it’s own right is evidence of the existance of a quiet racism in the south, in even the most liberal of institutions.
I can’t say whether you are a racist, but you have consistently shown yourself to be one of the board’s foremost apologists for racism, provided it originates from minorities and is directed toward Caucasians. I hope whatever moral brownie points you feel you earn from that position is worth the damage it does to your overall credibility.
I used to really enjoy a lot of your posts, particularly those on historical Christianity and Biblical exegesis. Unfortunately the stridency, hypocrisy, and illogic you display on this and certain other of your pet issues has led me to heavily question everything you say, regardless of the topic.
And without being told, I can fairly predict that you won’t give a shit what I think about you or your credibility— but who knows, there just might be others reading who feel as I do, whose opinions you hold in higher regard.
Or, maybe not.