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

[Frost27]

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?

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. 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.) 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.


The article in question can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/18/opinion/navarrette-t-shirt-controversy/

 

[ShindoL Shill]

so wearing your OWN country's flag IN THAT COUNTRY could offend the people who aren't native yet want to live there?
why would it offend them? they obviously like america, so why dislike the flag?

and i really hate it when people say stuff like "don't do that, you could insult [insert group here]. look, that guy over there is one, and he isnt even LOOKING at you. he's staring at his food! you're obviously causing him great emotional pain to the brink of-"
no.
no!
no, people. those mexicans. did they complain? no. so why in all of the godly fuck do you think they care!

 

[Vault Citizen]

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.

It sounds like the school was just trying to avoid violence.

 

[Frost27]

Apparently it stemed from an incident last year where a group of Mexican students walked around campus carrying a Mexican flag and a group of American students hung a makeshift American flag and began chanting "USA,USA" the Mexicans became "offended" and as the article says "...tensions flared and the two groups faced off with profanity and threats".

You can't tell me this is simply a way to "maintain order" in the school. I know there are a number of far better options at keeping tensions down than censoring your own nation's flag and student's national pride for fear an immigrant will be offended.

Apparently "Don't tread on me" means the exact opposite now.

 

[Terminate421]

Wow, what a stupid school. If I cannot show support for my country in the same country, then that's fucking stupid. I know that isn't much to say and sounds dumb but I an kinda pissed now and have an iPhone.

 

[Blue Hero]

Surely they can settle their differences over some tacos and hamburgers!

 

[Staskala]

It was just a measure of deescalation to avoid American students clashing with Mexican students on a day when the school asserted that there was such potential. No big deal, really, it's not like they outright banned wearing the flag.
If anything the insulting part is that the school actually believed that the Mexican students would turn violent if they saw the flag of their new home country, which they see every single day anyway. That's the insensitive action in this story.

 

[Lhianon]

welcome to germany, here it is like this since the early 90's, and somehow we got right-wing-terrorists murdering turks and policemen.. go figure...
and people from the middle east which want to have a german passport but state that they hate germans...
people should realize a flag is just a symbol, why should someone be offended cause you wear a pice of clothing displaying it, especially if it is the flag of a democratic nation, and on the homesoil of said nation? this is just another case of politicall correctness went stupid.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

......What. Arbitrary. SILLINESS.

I mean, WHAT? Look, if you go to a country, you should at least be accepting of the general society. I'm not going to go to the middle east and demand that they give women full rights (although they should), so why do WE have to bend over for anyone coming to north america?!

There's a difference between forcing your culture on newcomers, and just expressing your own when they're around. Seriously, this case is just stupid.

Lastly, how the hell is wearing your country's flag on a T-Shirt Possibly offensive to Mexicans on one of their holidays? I mean, if it was a T-Shirt of a taco wearing a sombrero going "esse!" then yeah, that could be offensive. But your own damn flag? 0_o

*PS, I'm not american. I'm Canadian. I just think this is stupid*

 

[Berithil]

That's just dumb. Students should be able to wear whatever they want as long as its within modesty rules. America is America. If we can't support our own country within our country, then there is something wrong, and something wrong is called political correctness. Now I'm all for the original, base idea of PC ( people not being negatively discriminated against due to race or gender) but PC has become so insane, most of the time it defies common sense. Things like this make me rage. Makes me wonder what our country will like down the road.

 

[ErictheRed1989]

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.

Did the Mexican students even actually say it offended them, or was it just the faculty doing it because they thought it MIGHT offend them.

 

[Dark Harbinger]

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.

 

[Dags90]

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.

It's also in the Flag Code, which is strictly voluntary, but I wonder if any of these alleged patriots have ever read it.

(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker's desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general

 

[Frost27]

It was just a measure of deescalation to avoid American students clashing with Mexican students on a day when the school asserted that there was such potential. No big deal, really, it's not like they outright banned wearing the flag.
If anything the insulting part is that the school actually believed that the Mexican students would turn violent if they saw the flag of their new home country, which they see every single day anyway. That's the insensitive action in this story.

So hamfistedly banning t-shirts displaying a nation's flag on that nation's soil is perfectly ok? They can't find better and more fair solutions? Have open discussions and cultural education programs so the white students would either be more respectful of another culture's celebration and might even want to join in? I would be willing to bet that the Mexican students were doing everything they could to promote Mexican pride, why can't the Americans? Now those white students are feeling like second class citizens in their own school to appease a minority. If a Mexican student wore the Mexican flag on a shirt, a cry of racism would erupt if the school tried to come down on them.

The messed up part is, how much would you like to bet that the school had an American Flag flying out front?

 

[newguy77]

I think I heard this back when it originally ran. However, I remember that some people said that the kids were trying to start something by wearing the shirts and they were dicks in the first place, this event just being the final straw. I'll see if I can find that anywhere.

EDIT: Alrighty, can't find it in any news channels, so I probably read it on a forum somewhere.

 

[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).

also why is the big need to always sue absolutly everything? they were ASKED, not forced or punished. ¬¬