Don't wear the American Flag on your shirt in California schools, you might offend the Mexicans.

[Russian_Assassin]

Yeah because being offensive is the biggest issue in the US right now. I presume you have solved all your other problems then? Otherwise this shouldn't be in the fucking news!

Gotta love people making up problems when they already have a crap-ton of them. But hey, anything that can distract from the real issues is only beneficial to the great bloated rich that assra- ok I'll stop now, sorry.

 

[Gothproxy]

Freedom of Speech.

A founding principle in the creation of our nation.

It used to mean something. It used to be the method from which change started.

Now, the only place where speech is "Free" is when you are at home...

...alone...

...talking to yourself in the mirror...

...and then, maybe.

We are no longer standing at the top of a slippery slope. We are well and truly sliding down it.

Just sayin'.

 

[Frost27]

Our national identities are what make our countries great and a global identity brings on global problems. I respect other nationalities and ethnicities but I also want my own and am quite proud of it.

North Korea is the most fervently nationalist country on the planet. This makes them great by your logic.

If a person who is there or is from there wants to feel pride in it, that is perfectly fine and that is their right. I did not, however, imply that the degree of national fervor was related to any nation's validity, greatness, or the overall view of others from outside their borders.

 

[Glerken]

If I were to go to Great Britain and demand that the British flag be covered because it might offend me on the 4th of July, it would cause an uproar.

Hahahahaha! Wrong my friend, all the anti-hate nonsense and political correctness has long since strangled any public signs of patriotism, it's all well and good for immigrants to parade around the streets proclaiming their religious dominance, waving their flags and chanting death to the west. But woe betide any British person if they wave their flag, oh egads, it might offend the immigrants!!

This is the lunacy we contend with, we don't even have freedom of speech, and it is being eroded by the euphemism of hate speech laws, it's fine for immigrants to sail into this country, swamp entire towns and run them into poverty ridden, disease carrying slums. And all they have to do is point at one of us and complain we're being racist, and wahey! It's off to the cells for you.


Yeah I'm bitter that my own country is being eaten by parasites...we seriously need a constitution like our American cousins...with a 1st Amendment, a 2nd Amendment would be nice too...one can hope.

You see world?
There's ignorant bigots everywhere, not just America.

The OP seems to have omitted this:

The previous year, in 2009, a group of Mexican students marked the holiday by walking around campus holding a Mexican flag. A group of white students responded by hanging a makeshift American flag from a tree and chanting "USA." According to the Chronicle, tensions flared and the two groups faced off with profanity and threats.

Little wonder that when some students showed up at school wearing T-shirts with American flags on them administrators decided to err on the side of caution.

I mean, c'mon... this isn't patriotism, this is trying to create a scene. The school has a pretty decent point.

Pretty much agree with this.

 

[sheah1]

Well, I'm glad to have been proven right in my guess that this was legal when this story first cropped up.

School children don't have absolute free speech, if the school can prove that the shirts are disruptive (say, for inciting ethnic tensions), then they can be told not to wear them. I think it's silly to conflate what are clearly ethnic tensions with patriotism. They didn't wear American flags because they were proud of their country. They wore them to antagonize Mexican-American students who were celebrating something they didn't happen to be a part of. It's a terrible and offensive use of the flag.

I should also note, that it was once considered wildly inappropriate, and gauche to print an American flag decoration on any item of clothing. I still think of it as kind of tacky, it's a gross form of plastic patriotism.

Everyone, please listen to this post. There is much wisdom within.

I remember hearing about this story near the time the event actually happened (I think it was on a Cracked article) and my thoughts were 'so of all the days you could have chosen to show your 'patriotism' you chose the one day when they had the chance to be proud of their native culture?'.

Let's be blunt, this isn't any violation of free speech or any sign that 'this is what's wrong with our society', it was a bunch of obnoxious little shits who wanted to give a xenophobic 'fuck you' to the other students and get away with it.

I love you two. I also love how everyone else in that thread has ignored the, pretty damn important, cinco de mayo bit.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

That's just stupid. When I go to another country I EXPECT to see that country's flag all over the place, no matter how much I may not like it. I mean it's common sense to me that a country should have the right to wave their own flag around on their own turf.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

All I could think of was Bandit Keith:


Seems pretty ridiculous to me though. The school was probably just avoiding conflict (maybe?), but the fact that the court sided with the school is kind of sad. There's nothing wrong with wearing such clothing in the same damn country you're promoting. But, on the other hand, it was noted that they did this on Cinco de Mayo, so I can't really say otherwise if the kids were doing it to piss off the Mexican students, or it was just a coincidence. *shrugs*

 

[Lunar Templar]

wow...
fuck that school, that judge and that whole state.

i do not care if my nations flag offends some one else, that more then likely(given the state) doesn't have the legal right to even be in the country to start with. i will wear should i choose to, and if they don't like it then to god damn bad

 

[Soviet Steve]

Our national identities are what make our countries great and a global identity brings on global problems.

I did not, however, imply that the degree of national fervor was related to any nation's validity, greatness, or the overall view of others from outside their borders.

I feel these two sections contradict each-other. Nationalism's only internal benefit is that it suppresses internal dissent during wartime, otherwise it has little influence within the nation. Outside views on a nation tends to be influenced heavily by nationalism. If Germany was still militantly demanding the return of Elsaß-Lothringen their diplomatic relations would be severely damaged.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

Even though this happened on May 5th of this year, CNN just ran the article now, likely due to the legal proceedings taking so long.

A group of white students wearing T-Shirts bearing the American flag were asked to turn their shirts inside out due to the possibility it could have been inflammatory to the Mexican students at the school on Cinco de Mayo.

The students and their families sued the school on the grounds that their freedom of speech had been infringed and the Judge in Northern California sided with the school.


How do you feel about this?

Quite simply, the kids were assholes, and the school made the right call. The American flag isn't inherently offensive, but they were wearing it with the same intent as someone who shows up to a synagogue wearing a Swastika armband.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

The previous year, in 2009, a group of Mexican students marked the holiday by walking around campus holding a Mexican flag. A group of white students responded by hanging a makeshift American flag from a tree and chanting "USA." According to the Chronicle, tensions flared and the two groups faced off with profanity and threats."

The administrators had this fresh in their minds when, the next year, a group of students were preemptively dressing for some sort of nationalism-fueled racial conflict.

Im my personal opinion, I believe that when wearing your nation's flag on your own soil becomes "inflammatory" and unacceptable, the problem is not with the students or the t-shirts or the flag, it is with the Judge and the schools.

*sigh* I wonder if you can hear the whistle of air as the point of the school's action flies over your head.

The thought that someone can immigrate from another country and have a holiday from that country (which in the case of Cinco de Mayo, the Mexicans in Mexico don't even really celebrate like we do in the U.S.)

Hang on a second. I'm picking up a rather massive assumption.

Alright, here's my challenge: go through the article and find the section that says the students were Mexican immigrants, and not just with Mexican heritage. Because it sounds like you're just assuming that they are to make yourself feel more justified for railing against them (which is a problem in itself, because it implies that you think immigrated citizens have less rights as Americans than native-born citizens).

be grounds for their host country having to hide their flag, we have a problem on many levels. If I were to go to Great Britain and demand that the British flag be covered because it might offend me on the 4th of July, it would cause an uproar.

...wait, what? Okay, I'm going to print this in boldface, simply because it's a rather big point:

T-shirts with American flags on them are not American flags.

On a similar note, where are you getting this notion that the school was suppressing all things American on Cinco de Mayo? You talk about "having to hide their flag" or how this is akin to "demanding that the [flag] be covered," but where does it say that any of that happened?

The only way a US/UK parallel would work is if you had a group of British people shouting down a Fourth of July celebration by drowning it in "God Save the Queen." Nobody was protesting the presence of the American flag, and you're a liar if you claim that they were. The school administrators were responding to a group of students who had a history of racially-targeted aggression and were gracious enough to wear clothes that made them easily identified before they actually tried something more serious.

They were wearing T-shirts and harboring the intent to disrupt the celebration of another ethnic group's holiday. None of the Mexican students were demanding that the Mexican flag be taken off the flag pole, and I sincerely doubt that they spent their Fourth of July crashing celebrations.

You know what the administrators did? A preemptive strike. And in my mind, that's more American than a bunch of racist kids wearing the flag on T-shirts to incite racial conflict.

 

[meromero]

lol americans

not wearing their flag because it might ofend someone? that just stupid. Specially considering that every friking american movie, tv series, video game, etc MUST HAVE BY LAW their flag for a few seconds on screen (not necesary by law, but it's always there).

Actually I don't remember the last time I saw an american flag displayed as you described in any of the shows here, except for cases where it was a self parody.

i didn't say that the shows here display the flag, but most mainstream big budget shows at least 1 second of the flag, and you can tell it was intentional. Not that it bothers me, exept in the ending of COD BO wich was only missing the YVAN EHT NIOJ song, it's your flag and you have all the right to show it as much as you want (you really like to display it)

BTW i know my english sucks, sorry for the mistakes

 

[TheScientificIssole]

DICK MOVE HONKIES!
Come on fellow whites, stop trying to make us the bad guys. Jesus.
Also, way to be sue happy.

 

[Phasmal]

agreed, in england (HOME turf! ) we cant ask for black coffees or sing ba ba black sheep, a song as old as the hills.....

not asking for black coffees has never been a thing and the ba ba black sheep was a lie if i remember correctly. At best, it was 1 stupid person who said that and the entire country said they were stupid. If you're going to talk about us being too concerned with political correctness, actually use decent stories.

im not talking about "you" being to concerned about political correctness, and the ba-ba black sheep wasnt a lie, my younger brother was told of and we got a letter home when he asked for it to be sang...and when i said" we cant ask for black coffees" i meant it is frowned upon to say that, and your meant to say coffee without milk.... back on topic, i can understand the concern, but it is a bit OTT in my opinion.

Nobody frowns upon people asking for black coffee. I have never heard of anyone even blinking at that. Have you been told off for the phrasing before? I guess there must be some people that ridiculous, but I doubt there's many at all.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/600470.stm
http://1millionunited.org/blogs/blog/2010/01/01/the-baa-baa-black-sheep-myth/
As i said, at best it was a one-off incident and everyone else said it was silly.

The baa-baa black sheep thing is not even NEARLY true. This is coming from someone who has worked in many many nurseries and not heard anything like this.

 

[BrownGaijin]

The previous year, in 2009, a group of Mexican students marked the holiday by walking around campus holding a Mexican flag. A group of white students responded by hanging a makeshift American flag from a tree and chanting "USA." According to the Chronicle, tensions flared and the two groups faced off with profanity and threats.

The article directly implies that the two incidents are linked and also implies that the students are of that variety.

Also responding to your post about your Irish ancestry, how would it feel to have a group of marchers going into a St. Patrick's Day Parade flying the Union Jack?

So this wasn't an isolated event, and it's likely that the school believed that another escalation would ensue.

As a Mexican-American I wouldn't be offended if someone wore an American Flag on Cinco de Mayo. I would be somewhat vexed if someone went around singing this:


And sadly hardly anyone would know why.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

nah, i have to say, if its not blatant, but subtly incorporated, then it can look OK'ish, but the full flag t-shirts look stupid, i agree

flag based apparel is lame.

doesn't matter which country: if you dress up in the flag, you look like a tool.

nah, i have to say, if its not blatant, but subtly incorporated, then it can look OK'ish, but the full flag t-shirts look stupid, i agree , but of course, this is a opinion.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

oops,that failed.

 

[holy_secret]

From what I've seen over the years, they've yet to prove me wrong.

Have you ever been to America? Walk down any street and look around. Anyone who isn't of indigenous descent is an immigrant or the direct descendant of immigrants.

I've never gotten how Americans can use the term immigrant. Everyone there is an immigrant or descendant from one. Seriously how do you make sense of that?

 

[Unesh52]

I side with the school, because I understand how decisions like this are made.

Wearing the flag is not inflammatory per se. But wearing the flag specifically to be jerks to another group? That's different. The students weren't trying to show patriotric pride. They were mocking, taunting, or otherwise going after the patriotic pride of others.

Now, is it possible the kids doing the whole Mexican flag thing were also just trying to stir up trouble? Sure. It's possible the whole episode was one big, "I dare ya to say something!" The problem is, if that was the case, that the "USA" group took the dare.

We want to turn it into something about the flag, but it's not. It's about one group of kids trying to goad another group of kids into an altercation. They were using the flag, not honoring it.

The school's decision had nothing to do with the flag. It had to do with the fact that a group of kids were trying to pick a fight with another group of kids, and trying to hide that behind the technicality of "it's just a flag." The school wisely saw through the ruse and said, "No, you're trying to stir the shit. We'll have none of it."

Why? Because if even the slightest bit of violence had occurred between those kids:

1. Someone would have played up any injuries and made a big deal.
2. Someone would claim the school should have "seen it coming," so they're at fault.
3. Someone would contact the ACLU to get lawyers involved.
4. Everyone would sue the school, rather than each other, because the school is more likely to have money.

If two kids were trying to turn your yard into a battleground, you would remove them so that you don't get sued when they hurt each other.

I agree with this point of view. Even if you can argue that they still shouldn't have done it (by no means an easy argument to make), you can at least acknowledge that the school wasn't just pandering to some asinine extrapolation of hyper-liberal sentiments. I wish the OP would edit in the rest of the story (how they had trouble with a similar incident the previous year) so that people don't come in here and slap out a knee-jerk reaction to the title. Though it would do everyone good to remember that if it sounds too stupid to be true, it probably isn't, and there's more to the story.

 

[Replay107]

Wonderful! This thread seems to be nicely populated with my favourite type of people, the "I'm not racist but..." types of racists. Using a flag as tool for racist and reactionary attitudes is never acceptable, but very few people are actually ever "offended" by somebody wearing a t-shirt with a national flag on it, or a flag in a window, or on a car with a perceived innocent intent. However, nastiness comes out when a flag is held up as symbol of hate, masquerading as national pride, which happens often.

Waving flags around for one a day a year and embracing old roots, not claiming any sort of national superiority, "fair enough!" One might say, "I can still put up a colourful sheet tomorrow if I so wish, and every other day. Hell! I could even put on my favourite patriot T-shirt on cinco de mayo if I so wanted, just as long if I didn't organise all my racist buddies to do the same and then shout abuse at other students!" But then these aformentioned buddies come along who deem the behavior of the other "nasty foreign" students as inflammatory and decide to counter this with their own little flags and chants, only this time they're used as weapons, wielded by the insecure.

Next thing we know, the school calls for an end to it, which obviously includes the removal of hate garb in this ONE particular instance, wait a couple of days for the racist little children to cry to mumsy and dadsy, and then there's the inevitable, obligatory, lazy and sensationalised headline that we've all seen before; "Can't wear home nations flag on T-shirt - says school. Shock! Outrage! No context!"

Those that claim that it's the White middle classes who are truly the most discriminated against...well, you really have no clue. No clue what-so-ever. Put a flag up if you want, just please don't look for lame excuses to justify your claim that things are so un-fair for you now. Next you'll be annoyed that the "immigrants took all the fun out of my racist jokes!"