US students kicked of school campus for wearing US flag t-shirts

[ono]

I'm pretty much in agreement with Jim, Bilbo, Ono & Amat. It's obvious why they were doing it. Not to mention wearing a t-shirt with a flag on it is lame unless it's affiliated with sports. But really come on. If I turned up to the US on Independence Day with a t-shirt with Osama's face on it* (and only wore it on that day), what would you think my intentions were?

* For all the thickos whose reading comprehension is terrible, I am NOT saying I'd ever wear an Osama t-shirt, it's an analogy.

It's getting to the point where it's best to put a disclaimer at the bottom of posts. Some people have the most excellent ability to completely misread the post and jump to stupid conclusions.

[ono]

And hilarious.

Because we all know it has seriously drove him berserk.

And us laughing will make him even angrier.


LOL

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

I don't know about articulation but it is definitely less violent, we have nothing that comes close to the Bronx, the hot spots of L.A or Detroit. We have our load of things not to be proud of though, starting by how the natives file has been dealt with how we're dealing our drinkable water sources but there is definitely a lot of places that are worth to be seen, especially for the nature lovers.

Oh okay. I mean I'm just interested in the whole English/ French co-existence... I want to find it remarkable but I wasn't aware that there was any tension there (like i say, i know nothing abut Canada!)

Yeah i'm just keen to look into the history of your country. How it all came to be etc...

[El Kabong]

Nothing you have said here is of direct relevance to the debate. Like I said, you HAVE to question the mindset of these boys. Without going on a rant about how much you hate the Mexicans for the way they shaped your history, tell me.... Question why do it? On this day?

They were in The United States of America .....is that not a good enough reason?


The idea of kicking these students out of school for wearing American flag t-shirts is 100% against everything The United States is about because the boys wearing the t-shirts did not prevent the people from celebrating Cinco de Mayo and THAT my friend is the bottom line....free speech isn't always nice and pleasant and fun, but sometimes a t-shirt is just a t-shirt and in this case an American from ANY ethnic group should be outraged that this happened.

I also find it highly offensive that the illegal immigrants wave Mexican flags when they protest immigration policy....that's just fucking idiotic, but I don't think just because they wave the Mexican flag that they should be thrown out of the country just on account of the flag thing.

[Nameless]

Oh okay. I mean I'm just interested in the whole English/ French co-existence... I want to find it remarkable but I wasn't aware that there was any tension there (like i say, i know nothing abut Canada!)

Yeah i'm just keen to look into the history of your country. How it all came to be etc...

There is some tensions, sometimes when drunktards from both "clan" meet there are fighting but really, it is more of a big rivalry and because some laws are unfair for the French natives, it is far from being close to the unthinkable like the ethnic war going on in Iraq or the Kurdish case in Turkey. In a nutshell: French discovered Canada first, English came then, both used some native tribes to help their side, they slammed each others on the head, France did stop to help its colonies, not England, French lost and at the time, English quite tried to assimilate them by force.
The biggest modern problem is that Quebec gives more to the Country proportionally than any other provinces, which angers French Canadians, our current Nuts Prime Minister corrected partly the problem by re-giving a part of it (which the other Federal Gov always denied us) and some things are just weighted with 2 measures: For example, legally speaking, the Country has officially recognized both languages, French and English as our official ones. Normally, we are supposed to be able to receive health cares and any primal services in both languages. This is only true in Quebec and in a very few town in the North of Ontario. Institutions in Quebec receive the stick every time somebody is not answered in a clean cut English if they make a complaint but in the rest of Canada, it is almost impossible to have essential services in French, even in Toronto you can absolutely forget it but the gov doesn't do nothing about it. Same for the Army, before the official army manual was in both languages, now they did cut the french version to save money and it's only in English. When every official stuff are supposed to be both released in french and English, it's quite a slap. Air Carrier Air Canada has been found guilty many times of not having at least one member of the crew speaking french on board, every time they babble about giving formations to their employees so it would not happen again but the problem doesn't change, really.

There is a couple of other situations like that and that's mostly where the modern conflicts and tension emerges, that coupled with the fact that in Montreal, there is a very wealthy English community living on West Island and some of them never learned french and said they didn't have to because the country was foremost English and that French wasn't important and that there is no reasons why they should speak it. One of them Galganov even wrote a book called "Bastards" where basically, he's spitting hatred against French Canadians... Mix it all together and you have a bit of electricity when it comes to politics discussions. However, I would say that for the huge majority on both side, we're living very well together, really. Personally I am not for the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada, I just think that some things should be made fairer for the french natives (like for the proportion of money given and the bilingual stuff) and that we should call these rivalry a day... except when the Montreal Canadians are playing the Leafs, of course If you cut the bunch of nutters on both side and do not mix politics when it's election time or national holidays, it's not that bad at all really, everywhere I went and met some Canadians on vacations it has always been a good time, just don't mix the nutters who think that french Canadians are extreme potential terrorists and the others that see english speakers as potential enemies and it's all ok.

p.s: Sometihng interesting: Quebec provincial rules are far different from the rest of those in the Country as they are a mix of the Napoleon Code and the English Common law, which is unique to the Province.

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

They were in The United States of America .....is that not a good enough reason?


The idea of kicking these students out of school for wearing American flag t-shirts is 100% against everything The United States is about because the boys wearing the t-shirts did not prevent the people from celebrating Cinco de Mayo and THAT my friend is the bottom line....free speech isn't always nice and pleasant and fun, but sometimes a t-shirt is just a t-shirt and in this case an American from ANY ethnic group should be outraged that this happened.

I also find it highly offensive that the illegal immigrants wave Mexican flags when they protest immigration policy....that's just fucking idiotic, but I don't think just because they wave the Mexican flag that they should be thrown out of the country just on account of the flag thing.

To be fair, I see your point.

But it's still a difficult situation to handle when its pretty clear that these boys knew they were going to cause trouble before they went into school with their own definition of 'uniform'.

But then I accept, of course, the fact that this raises the question of whether or not this was an act of co-patriotism or indeed counter-patriotism.

Obviously teachers in this day and age are far too consumed with national curriculum & political correctness to really delve into correcting or aligning social issues as complex as this and therefore yes maybe they are guilty of simply copping out for an easy solution.

But can you not accept that there is usually a pattern to these proceedings? I mean, you must see that it is HIGHLY unlikely (as even you have proven yourself) that these kids are able to fully comprehend total passive patriotism. Its always ''get one up, get one back, we'll show em, fuck em, bomb em''.... Like I say, there is usually a pattern to these proceedings. But i'll accept that the teaches took the easy option.

[ono]

They were in The United States of America .....is that not a good enough reason?


The idea of kicking these students out of school for wearing American flag t-shirts is 100% against everything The United States is about because the boys wearing the t-shirts did not prevent the people from celebrating Cinco de Mayo and THAT my friend is the bottom line....free speech isn't always nice and pleasant and fun, but sometimes a t-shirt is just a t-shirt and in this case an American from ANY ethnic group should be outraged that this happened.

I also find it highly offensive that the illegal immigrants wave Mexican flags when they protest immigration policy....that's just fucking idiotic, but I don't think just because they wave the Mexican flag that they should be thrown out of the country just on account of the flag thing.

Illegal immigrants protest the immigration policy? In what way? How you do know they're illegal? Why would an illegal immigrant bring attention to himself in this sort of way? Correct me if i'm wrong, but that doesn't sound right.

The reason the kids were sent home (not thrown out of school) for the day was because the t-shirts were seen as provocative because they didn't wear them on any other day. I know it's their right to wear whatever they like, but at the same time, choosing to wear a certain garment purely to provoke a reaction is wrong, and it could have caused problems. It's an incredibly twatish thing to do.

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

There is some tensions, sometimes when drunktards from both "clan" meet there are fighting but really, it is more of a big rivalry and because some laws are unfair for the French natives, it is far from being close to the unthinkable like the ethnic war going on in Iraq or the Kurdish case in Turkey. In a nutshell: French discovered Canada first, English came then, both used some native tribes to help their side, they slammed each others on the head, France did stop to help its colonies, not England, French lost and at the time, English quite tried to assimilate them by force.
The biggest modern problem is that Quebec gives more to the Country proportionally than any other provinces, which angers French Canadians, our current Nuts Prime Minister corrected partly the problem by re-giving a part of it (which the other Federal Gov always denied us) and some things are just weighted with 2 measures: For example, legally speaking, the Country has officially recognized both languages, French and English as our official ones. Normally, we are supposed to be able to receive health cares and any primal services in both languages. This is only true in Quebec and in a very few town in the North of Ontario. Institutions in Quebec receive the stick every time somebody is not answered in a clean cut English if they make a complaint but in the rest of Canada, it is almost impossible to have essential services in French, even in Toronto you can absolutely forget it but the gov doesn't do nothing about it. Same for the Army, before the official army manual was in both languages, now they did cut the french version to save money and it's only in English. When every official stuff are supposed to be both released in french and English, it's quite a slap. Air Carrier Air Canada has been found guilty many times of not having at least one member of the crew speaking french on board, every time they babble about giving formations to their employees so it would not happen again but the problem doesn't change, really.

There is a couple of other situations like that and that's mostly where the modern conflicts and tension emerges, that coupled with the fact that in Montreal, there is a very wealthy English community living on West Island and some of them never learned french and said they didn't have to because the country was foremost English and that French wasn't important and that there is no reasons why they should speak it. One of them Galganov even wrote a book called "Bastards" where basically, he's spitting hatred against French Canadians... Mix it all together and you have a bit of electricity when it comes to politics discussions. However, I would say that for the huge majority on both side, we're living very well together, really. Personally I am not for the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada, I just think that some things should be made fairer for the french natives (like for the proportion of money given and the bilingual stuff) and that we should call these rivalry a day... except when the Montreal Canadians are playing the Leafs, of course If you cut the bunch of nutters on both side and do not mix politics when it's election time or national holidays, it's not that bad at all really, everywhere I went and met some Canadians on vacations it has always been a good time, just don't mix the nutters who think that french Canadians are extreme potential terrorists and the others that see english speakers as potential enemies and it's all ok.

p.s: Sometihng interesting: Quebec provincial rules are far different from the rest of those in the Country as they are a mix of the Napoleon Code and the English Common law, which is unique to the Province.

I am very grateful for this post. Most informative!!

I definitely find it remarkable that the French & English have managed to form any kind of co-existence given our history.

[antimoron]

are those kids wearing the OLD NAVY shirts? just asking..

[Gandalf]

Jesus, what happened to the site? I stayed away for a few days because this thread made me a little bit mad and I didn't understand why I was being labelled a racist. I tried quoting Bilbo's post but this new system is weird and I wasn't sure it would reply properly so I will just do it like this instead. I'm glad to see that he doesn't think I am a racist because I am not and never have been. It's not in my mindset to hate on people because of a skin tone. He says that my argument is petty and he is entitled to that view and I'm not so upset by that. I still don't think it should be a problem that the kids wore the shirts though, certainly not on on the theoretical level, after all a shirt is just a shirt and what is so offensive about the American flag on this particular day? I just don't see the offense in that.

I'm not a nationalist, but I do believe in the freedom to wear what you like. It's a simple argument and I am sticking with it. I just cannot get upset by someone else wearing their own flag colours. It's not something I would do myself, but I could never get upset by others doing it.

My deportation comment was perhaps a bit harsh in retrospect and rash too, but my point was that if you are going to live in another culture you need to try and respect that culture too. You can't be getting too upset by native kids wearing their own colours. If it is an act of provocation then you need to rise above it, it's only a flag.

[Howlin Mad Missy]

it's a bit of cloth. get over it

[Gandalf]

I've no idea if this is going to quote things correctly as it's my first time trying it properly, but well said Nameless. This is pretty much the way I am seeing the story too.

To answer Amat and Bilbo and Jaz's last argument:

1) Some peoples are coming to the st-Jean Baptiste parade with Canadian flags for various reasons, one being sometimes to show that historically, the french got their rear end kicked by the english an some do it as a gesture of protest against the idea that Quebec might split from Canada someday (which is what many french Canadian wants). Peoples have deeply the right to express their feelings and opinions, if they wage a flag they do not hurt me, if they say an insult they are idiot but I am even dumber if I fire back with violence, period.

2) These kids, if they did just wear american stuff didn't do nothing wrong if expressing that they are in the U.S and to remind the others celebrating their national holiday that they were still living in the US, to me, there is nothing deeply wrong with it, could a bit provocative but as long as they didn't act aggressively or did something hurtful to the mexican culture (burning a flag, stomping a Mexican icon etc), is walks the thin line.

3) article 19 of the human right chart stipulates about the freedom of speech (which is good everywhere normally) and they didn't trespassed any borders if they just showed pacifically their beliefs. It is also in line with every rules of the first amendment guaranteed by the US chart. These rights apply as well in a school, by the way. If they did their stuff pacifically and haven't been aggressive, even if it is not entirely ethically correct perhaps to do so it was still within the limits of decency. Their demonstration wasn't racist, it wasn't violent, it didn't stop peoples from celebrating, In these circumstances, I really do not see the problem. Wearing flags for no reason is lame, sure, but shouldn't be forbidden for such kind of events.

4) to Jaz, the Ben Laden argument is not very good in my opinion because there is a difference between wearing the flag from the country you're in and displaying a mass murderer who threats to annihilate every american citizens using any means available. This is just not the same kind of symbol neither provocation at all.

5) If the kids would have been aggressive, violent or destroying any kind of mexican icons, that would be all another kind of story.

[HattonTheHammer]

we still talking about this?

Not even the kid that got sent home for wearing the shirt will remember it by now!!

[Kev]

Jesus, what happened to the site? I stayed away for a few days because this thread made me a little bit mad and I didn't understand why I was being labelled a racist. I tried quoting Bilbo's post but this new system is weird and I wasn't sure it would reply properly so I will just do it like this instead. I'm glad to see that he doesn't think I am a racist because I am not and never have been. It's not in my mindset to hate on people because of a skin tone. He says that my argument is petty and he is entitled to that view and I'm not so upset by that. I still don't think it should be a problem that the kids wore the shirts though, certainly not on on the theoretical level, after all a shirt is just a shirt and what is so offensive about the American flag on this particular day? I just don't see the offense in that.

I'm not a nationalist, but I do believe in the freedom to wear what you like. It's a simple argument and I am sticking with it. I just cannot get upset by someone else wearing their own flag colours. It's not something I would do myself, but I could never get upset by others doing it.

My deportation comment was perhaps a bit harsh in retrospect and rash too, but my point was that if you are going to live in another culture you need to try and respect that culture too. You can't be getting too upset by native kids wearing their own colours. If it is an act of provocation then you need to rise above it, it's only a flag.

I don't think you're a racist at all Miles I was just making a point of excercising my freedom of speech to call you names!

For me the issue is nothing to do with nationalism, patriotism, freedom of speech, liberties or anything else. It's simply a case of a school day being organised to celebrate something important to many people at the school and a small group of twats trying to be antagonistic about it. It's just like bullying really.

Forget about race and look at other similar scenarios and it makes more sense. Imagine the school had a lot of special needs students and they put on a sports day for them or something and a group of kids turned up with tshirts with pictures of mongs on the front, they would be told to remove them and stop being so mean.

Or if there was a 'Bring a parent to school day' where they come in and talk about their jobs and some kids put some t-shirts with slogans making jokes about certain jobs that many dads in the school do, or comments about those whose parent's left them or something, again it would just be a disruptive, mean, nasty thing to do.

Dizaster's own exmple was great, wearing a tshirt with a Vietnames woman with a machine gun to her head when the Japanese exchange students came to his school. Again just a cuntish thing to do.

I don't see why people are making this a patriotic or nationalistic issue when it's nothing to do with that. It was just a group of kids being twats and wanting to show another group of kids they weren't accepted.

Schools HAVE to outlaw bullying, and if the principle thought this could be construed as such (and it's not hard to see why) then he took the appropriate steps to stamp it out.

All he did was tell them if they didn't take them off they would be sent home for the afternoon. And these dickish kids were clearly just looking for trouble as they chose to go home.

Now their parents are planning to sue the school? For what?

It's fucking ridiculous and and it just makes me angry that these kinds of asshole people are out there, just trying to make a petty point and arguing for the sake of arguing, and of course clearly hoping to make a nice tidy sum of money in damages from it.

If they do sue I hope it gets rejected and they have to pay costs.

[Gandalf]

Jesus, what happened to the site? I stayed away for a few days because this thread made me a little bit mad and I didn't understand why I was being labelled a racist. I tried quoting Bilbo's post but this new system is weird and I wasn't sure it would reply properly so I will just do it like this instead. I'm glad to see that he doesn't think I am a racist because I am not and never have been. It's not in my mindset to hate on people because of a skin tone. He says that my argument is petty and he is entitled to that view and I'm not so upset by that. I still don't think it should be a problem that the kids wore the shirts though, certainly not on on the theoretical level, after all a shirt is just a shirt and what is so offensive about the American flag on this particular day? I just don't see the offense in that.

I'm not a nationalist, but I do believe in the freedom to wear what you like. It's a simple argument and I am sticking with it. I just cannot get upset by someone else wearing their own flag colours. It's not something I would do myself, but I could never get upset by others doing it.

My deportation comment was perhaps a bit harsh in retrospect and rash too, but my point was that if you are going to live in another culture you need to try and respect that culture too. You can't be getting too upset by native kids wearing their own colours. If it is an act of provocation then you need to rise above it, it's only a flag.

I don't think you're a racist at all Miles I was just making a point of excercising my freedom of speech to call you names!

For me the issue is nothing to do with nationalism, patriotism, freedom of speech, liberties or anything else. It's simply a case of a school day being organised to celebrate something important to many people at the school and a small group of twats trying to be antagonistic about it. It's just like bullying really.

Forget about race and look at other similar scenarios and it makes more sense. Imagine the school had a lot of special needs students and they put on a sports day for them or something and a group of kids turned up with tshirts with pictures of mongs on the front, they would be told to remove them and stop being so mean.

Or if there was a 'Bring a parent to school day' where they come in and talk about their jobs and some kids put some t-shirts with slogans making jokes about certain jobs that many dads in the school do, or comments about those whose parent's left them or something, again it would just be a disruptive, mean, nasty thing to do.

Dizaster's own exmple was great, wearing a tshirt with a Vietnames woman with a machine gun to her head when the Japanese exchange students came to his school. Again just a cuntish thing to do.

I don't see why people are making this a patriotic or nationalistic issue when it's nothing to do with that. It was just a group of kids being twats and wanting to show another group of kids they weren't accepted.

Schools HAVE to outlaw bullying, and if the principle thought this could be construed as such (and it's not hard to see why) then he took the appropriate steps to stamp it out.

All he did was tell them if they didn't take them off they would be sent home for the afternoon. And these dickish kids were clearly just looking for trouble as they chose to go home.

Now their parents are planning to sue the school? For what?

It's fucking ridiculous and and it just makes me angry that these kinds of asshole people are out there, just trying to make a petty point and arguing for the sake of arguing, and of course clearly hoping to make a nice tidy sum of money in damages from it.

If they do sue I hope it gets rejected and they have to pay costs.

Yeah, the racist thing got under my skin at that point in time and I kind of sat back and thought "woah, I've been called a racist when I had no idea we were even talking about racism". Of course, I can see that racism might have been a point festering underneath it all in the actual story, but that is not how I looked at it when arguing my points. I took it as an oddball story where ethnic minorities were trying to dictate to natives whether they can wear their own colours or not and in it's own way it is. I mean, can you honestly tell me where the offense is in wearing US flag colours on this particular holiday? From what I can gather this had nothing to do with American domination. Therefore, I struggle to see the issue with America in this instance. I find it strange that these students were so affronted by this behaviour. Now if it were Afghan students or Iraqi students I could really empathise, because I think American colonialism and brutality has been quite blatant, but to the Mexicans in this particular instance? I really struggle to see it.

I see your arguments and you put them across well. I can understand that it is a school and the peace needs to be kept, but I struggle to see why these Mexican kids couldn't contain themselves enough to just get through their schoolday and go home. It's just a day of the year and they are being allowed to celebrate their day. I find it hard to believe that these US shirts in the USA were really that big a deal to these immigrant kids who have been provided with decent lives in the very same country. And as I said why is America so wrong on this particular day, I struggle to see it.

If the American kids were trying to beat up the Mexican kids then it is bullying, but as it stands it's no more to me than a crowd of Everton shirt wearers having to walk down a street passing a handful of people in Liverpool shirts. Rise up and move beyond, it isn't so hard. It all seems so silly to me.