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

[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.

As far as I can tell there is no indication that any 'ethnic minorities' asked the principle to send the boys home. I think it is suggestive of a general underlying hostility that many people have towards ethnic minorities they automatically make negative attachments to them in cases such as these. Looking at your own post where you say you took it as 'an oddball story where ethnic minorities were trying to dictate....'. I mean why did you assume that it was the ethnic minorities who were in the wrong here? and then 'it is strange the students were affronted by this behaviour'.

From what I've read the principle acted on his own accord prophylactically to prevent any trouble, yet you automatically see the ethnic's being the trouble makers here, when it's clear that it was the American kids trying to make a point, not the Mexicans.

I imagine the American kids had that same underlying hostility as well. When they heard Cinci Di Mayo was being celebrated at their school it got their backs up and they wanted to make a show of protest by wearing their own flags. They might not be racist, it might just be jealously and general resentment which is so common throughout the world.

You see it on this forum with the comments directed frequently at me for being registered as sick due to disability. Although it's no fault of my own that I had cancer and almost died, there are still a few people on here who are bothered by the idea that someone can be supported by the state. It just angers them and it's no coincidence I think that those who dislike me the most on this forum clearly have that axe to grind again and again.

I do think in general certain people have a kind of passive aggressive attitude towards certain people, religions, sexual orientations, racial groups etc and so will always interperate stories about them in a negative way.

Not singling you out here, I think we all do it. Every single one of us has a view regarding all the various people groups in the world and it filters how they see the news accordingly.

In response to your first argument, my point is really at the most basic of levels. I do not understand how a school with a majority of hispanic kids can become so upset by a small group of natives exercising their constitutional rights. In this sense I am always likely to take the side of free expression in a situation like this. Maybe it wasn't the Mexicans, but the decision to send the flag wearers home probably didn't come out of thin air. And as I asked before since when has 'Cinci Di Mayo' been such an offense commited by the Americans? By all accounts it isn't even a big Mexican holiday but something created more for north of the border.

Generally, I think I am motivated by the horrible sense of injustice that I feel exists in the world. Those are the kinds of things that rile me up more that most, but at the same time I have quite strong Libertarian leanings. I think the later is what has swayed me in this story. I don't really sense any injustice whatsover in this story besides kids being sent home for no proper reason. In my day it took a lot more than that to get sent home.