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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 21171
[Civil]
Date Posted:
9/16/2009
6:12:20 pm EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 8,541
RSS: 18,664
Comments: 25
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Judge Says S.C. School Can Ban Confederate Clothing
Author: The Associated Press Source: Tampa Bay Online
Title: JUDGE SAYS S.C. SCHOOL CAN BAN CONFEDERATE CLOTHING
A South Carolina teen who sued a school district over the right to wear Confederate-themed clothing to school will appeal a ruling that sides with the district, her attorney said today.
"This is an immanently appealable decision," said Kirk Lyons, an attorney for the Southern Legal Resource Center based in North Carolina. "I think we can get this reversed in the Fourth Circuit."
In 2006, Lyons' group filed a federal lawsuit against the Latta School District on behalf of Candice Hardwick, then a 15-year-old high school sophomore.
Hardwick's attorneys argued that the teen — who was forced to change clothes, turn shirts inside-out and was suspended twice for Confederate-themed clothing in middle school — felt that a ban on wearing the Confederate emblem violated her right to free speech.
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Community Thoughts: There are 25 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Hatred, Fear And Deception | Sep 20th. at 12:19:33 am EDT
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nasionnaich (Stanchfield, Minnesota) - Email Me
Ok, the "Stars and Bars" is a "battle" flag -- so that means whoever displays it is looking to start a fight, or is wishing to "continue" what was started in the 1850's. Unless, all of a sudden, the Nazi flag and a burning cross are "meaningless symbols", too.
"Patriotism" in the "Revolutionary War"? There was no U.S.A. to be a Patriot for, so that leaves being either a Patriot for the English Crown -- or a treasonous Rebel against the English Crown. (Guess what? That one was fought over Money, too - those in power didn't want to pay for English goods, nor did they want to do all the work while those in England got rich. The "common folk" just got sucked in by the half-truths told by those in power - Washington, Jefferson, Madison, etc. It's there to be learned, for those willing to learn.)
So there were many families and individuals in "The South" who did not own slaves. Yay. Like as not, they just couldn't afford to keep slaves. The problem is that those IN POWER owned slaves. Those IN POWER made the decisions and set the policies by which everyone else was required to live. Those IN POWER deceived the "common folk" (those who didn't have money or power) into believing that the Big Bad North was gonna take everything from them and give it all to the niggers (who, "coincidentally", had extremely few, if any, rights) . Given the predominant views concerning Negros, saying "We didn't own slaves" is the same as saying "I didn't put the rope around the nigger's neck" -- it is basically meaningless. If your family didn't own slaves, did they at least speak out against slavery -- or did they just say "it ain't my problem, I'm gonna just mind my own business"?
Back to the nitty-gritty of the article....
The "Freedom of Speech" clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. of A. pertains to the Right of Citizens to speak their minds concerning the Governments of the U.S. of A..and the individual States making up the U.S. of A., and the policies of said Governments. It does not give anyone the right to say, do, write, display or wear whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want. It most definitely does not give anyone the right to display, in any fashion, that which is known to deliberately incite others to violence, hatred, or otherwise show contempt and/or discrimination for/towards others. If the First Amendment allowed that sort of garbage, it would not be illegal to deliberately slander and libel those you happen to not like (If you have the right to call me a "nigger", I should have the right to call your kid a "re-tard freak". What, you don't like that? Hey it's "Freedom of Speech"!) .
The "Stars and Bars" -- the Confederate battle flag everyone is well acquainted with -- is a symbol of anti-Federal Government thinking (bias, actually) , and it is a symbol of "I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want, regardless of what the Law says 'cause I have the Gawd-given right to" thinking. It has become closely associated with racism and plain old hatred for all that is "different". It is not a "fashion statement" -- it is a POLITICAL SYMBOL signifying that the person displaying it wishes either to over-throw the Lawful government of the U.S.A, or form their own Government. Why do y'all think there are so very few "Southern" members of Congress who will openly wear or display the "Stars and Bars"?
It is a symbol of rebellion AGAINST the United States of America.
The student should leave off wearing the "Stars and Bars" for outside the school. She is there to learn -- not to force her world-view on all the other students. It would be very different if, say, her family were Ukranian and she decided to wear Traditional Ukranian clothing to school.
--nasionnaich
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| Long Memories | Sep 19th. at 2:45:54 pm EDT
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morning glory (jackson, Mississippi) - Email Me
My family has a very long unbroken line of being veteran, that includes me. All the way back to the Revolutionary War we can trace the courage and patriotism of my family and our beliefs. At least one, if not more from every generation has served.
We never owned slaves.
We have however not always worn the blue of the Union. Some of my family wore Gray uniforms and paid the ultimate price for their beliefs. He is buried in Vicksburg, MS at the Civil War Battlefield there. He died to protect his family from murderous invaders. My hometown was once referred to as "Chimneyville" because of the rampage that Sherman thrust upon my hometown. All that was left were a few homes, one of which is the Govenor's Mansion, and a whole lot of barren burned crops fields, homes reduced to chimneys, and the dead left to rot in the sun. Old photos of this are readily available to be viewed in the Old Capitol Museum here in Jackson.
That flag as well as the flag of this United country are my heritage, and I will wear them with pride. So will my children if they choose to.
By the way, the South had several regiments of African Americans that were free people and several of whom owned slaves themselves fight for the preservation of the Confederacy and our rights.
Here in the south we have very long memories.
Maybe that's good, maybe not, but...
I'm proud of my lineage from which I come, Patriots and Honorable all of them.
History is written by the ones doing the conquering. That doesn't always make it true.
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| Confederate Flag IS About History | Sep 19th. at 12:15:05 am EDT
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Hadriana (Rome, Georgia) - Email Me
To those of you questioning how much the kids in the South even CARE about Southern History, have you ever been to a re-enactment here? You will see a TON of kids that can tell you every small detail down to where their particular replica uniform was sewn and what train it was shipped on.
Somehow, our history books taught that the civil war was all about slavery or maybe that was just the easy thing to grab hold of since most people didn't really care and just wanted to get out of history class. But in the South, we still tend to believe it was about state's rights and that Sherman wasn't a hero, he was a war criminal.
I go to my family's graveyard, and there are my confederate great great's that died in the war- 5 of them in a little cemetery outside of Cloudland, GA. My family was half-breed, because of some Indian blood, and we NEVER had slaves.
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| This... | Sep 18th. at 9:21:42 pm EDT
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Corax (Glendale, Arizona) - Email Me
is a complex issue with a lot of legitimate (and illegitimate) feelings on both sides.
If I painted anyone with too broad a brush, then I was incorrect to say some of the things I did.
My main point is that despite who did what to who in the past or present, the plain truth is that (like it or not) we now live in a multiethnic, multicultural country, and if we don't want to have another civil war, this one FAR worse than the last, we had all better grow up and get rational and practical IN ONE DAMN HURRY!
As a famous jurist once said: the First Amendment Free Speech right does NOT give you the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater.
Not all. but I believe most, of the people who display messages that they know someone or other is going to be offended at, are, on some level, deliberate troublemakers. Cases in point:
Fred Phelps- the preacher who "hates fags",
The anti-Obama protesters who paint a Hitler mustache on Obama's likeness,
The provocateurs who wear loaded weapons to an Obama function. (I'm not anti-gun by any means, but really, folks, isn't this going a bit too far? It's an implied threat for pete's sake, and it may very well come back and bite gun owners in the ass!)
SURELY there must be SOME common ground; a place of reason that we can all find. Stop the Insanity!
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| What A Crock | Sep 18th. at 6:28:10 pm EDT
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Thoreyadin (Randolph, Ohio) - Email Me
Thhe Stars and bars is a Battle flag!!!! Anyone want to read history?? It has NO connotations to anything!!! People NEED to Grow UP!!!
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| The Slaver's Treason Was About Slavery | Sep 18th. at 4:13:32 pm EDT
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Dan Holzman-Tweed (New York CIty, New York) - Email Me
No fewer than four of the slaver states explicitly identified slavery in their "declarations of independence" as the reason the comitted treason.
They were explicit that white people enslaving black people was an indispensable part of their culture over which they were willing to commit treason.
When a Southerner tells you that the confederate flag is about Southern culture and heritage, and implies that the culture and heritage being celebrated aren't slavery and treason, they either don't know their culture or they're lying to you.
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| Powerful People, Small Minds - And Truth | Sep 18th. at 7:26:00 am EDT
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nasionnaich (Stanchfield, Minnesota) - Email Me
I have read a LOT of the history that is not taught in school, the history those with Political agendas do not want us to know about. For instance....
Yes, the "South" did secede from the "Union" because of how the "North" was badgering the "South" over slavery and "State's Rights" -- but the thing that started it all was plain old Economics. The "North" couldn't compete with the "South", even with all of its Modern Industry, because the "South" was using the free labor of slavery.
Most of the "Northern" politicians, Lincoln included, didn't like that. Lincoln's other concern, of course, was keeping the "Union" intact, and when "Southern" states began to secede he gave them an ultimatum: "Come back, or we go to war". The issue of slavery was simply a "sidebar" to the Economic problem; never mind the fact that the "Southerners" of the time were generally taught from the cradle that Negros and Indians were basically "sub-human" and therefor had no rights at all -- most "Northerners" of the time thought the same way.
Y'all know what the "South" decided to do.
Today, the Confederate flag is a symbol of anti-Federalist government (specifically) , anti-Government intrusion, anti-"non-White" mind-set. It is NOT a simple "casual fashion statement", or a "statement" of any kind except that of hate and intolerance. It is akin to the t-shirts which list exactly why a bottle of beer is "better" than any woman -- no matter how "humorous" that list might be....
If the school is forced to allow the displaying of the Confederate flag on school property by students, then there should be absolutely no problem with students displaying the Nazi flag as well. Good luck with that happening.
--nasionnaich
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| And No... | Sep 18th. at 4:41:37 am EDT
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Hoolet (Columbia, South Carolina) - Email Me
...the secession of the Southern states was not primarily caused by slavery, but by economic bullying from the northern states, whose numerical majority in Congress gave them power to do so. There was no income tax then, the federal government got most of its revenues from tariffs. Since the South's economy, not the north's, was export-based, the South already was paying 80% of the federal tax revenue. Then in 1860, Congress passed the Morrill Tariff, which would more than double the taxes on the Southern economy and could bankrupt it. So they decided to take an amicable divorce from the US, only to be invaded shortly after. If they had remained in the Union, they knew slavery would remain legal, because the north did not have the three-fourths majority needed to pass a Constitutional amendment banning it. Plus, they could have returned to the Union peacefully, when Lincoln and the Republicans proposed a Constitutional amendment protecting slavery forever. These facts, and others too numerous to mention here, demonstrate that slavery was not the South's motivation for seceding.
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| WHOA!!! | Sep 18th. at 4:18:42 am EDT
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Hoolet (Columbia, South Carolina) - Email Me
Confederate Flags represent racism and hatred as much as Pentacles represent devil worship and evil. Like it or not, over three-fourths of Southerners claim the Confederate Naval Jack as the symbol of our culture, and an even higher percentage (I believe it was near 90%) insist that they view it as representing our heritage, with no racist connotations. Just because some ignorant folks PERCEIVE it to represent something dishonorable is no reason to ban it, anymore than the Pentacle should be banned because of misconceptions about its meaning. If anything, the school should be educating students about the flag's true meaning, helping to dispel the unwarranted ignorance and fear of it, rather than beating down one culture to appease another.
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| ... | Sep 17th. at 7:59:36 pm EDT
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Gray Fox (Albuquerque, New Mexico) - Email Me
Be careful what you wish for, folks. Censoring ANY belief (no matter how distasteful we may find them) is a slippery slope. This person did nothing illegal and was not promoting anything illegal. Unless they violated a dress code. Disgusting yes, illegal no.
I'd rather be offended out in the open then have some who take this to the extreme sent under ground, only to gain strength because their view is "oppressed". Tread lightly. Tread very lightly.
BTW, how many here applauded the student (s) wearing the anti-Bush shirts and jeered the school (s) for their action (s) ? Just wondering...
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| Wearing Trouble.... | Sep 17th. at 5:59:36 pm EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
The Confederate flag has been used lately as an "in your-face symbol", much like the burning cross for the KKK, and while the "General Lee" sported it in mythical Hazzard County, it has always been a symbol of the deep South and their ongoing sentiments since the "late unpleasantness".
While wearing it in certain circles may be just fine, it does invite controversy and shouldn't be worn in school, just like many other items of clothing with overly blatant markings, slogans and sayings meant to invite trouble.
They would immediately send someone home wearing a shirt that was Pro- Hitler, why not the Confederate flag?
Yes, free-speech does exist in school, but not at the expense of starting a fight. In fact, the reason for much of this kind of clothing is to start controversy to begin with.
I think the kid- should- be made to write a hand written essay to fully explain the shirt and his reason for wearing it. At the very least, writer's cramp may make him change his mind.
If he was working, he might have to change out of it too as some workplaces ban certain types of clothing from their sites.
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| Yeah, Right... | Sep 17th. at 2:51:58 pm EDT
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Lorca (Longview, Washington) - Email Me
There was never a justification for assassinating the President of the United States, just as there was never anything approaching a real justification for secession and a civil war that "...killed 600, 000 Americans..." and brought economic ruin to so many.
Enlightened people don't behave that way. No, the south certainly does not have a lock on ignorance and racisim. Oregon had a clause in it's first state Constitution, adopted in 1857, that excluded persons of minority races from even living in that state, but only in Dixie has such stupidity been maintained as an institution, often state-sponsored, for so long.
I am must old enough to remember seeing federal troops forcing the state of Alabama to allow African American children to attend the same schools as white kids, while their governor continued to opine about "state's rights" and other straw-man arguments supporting the blatant practice of racial segregation.
One would think that any person or institution that really, truly wanted to embrace justice and equality would want to put as much distance as possible between themselves and even the symbols of such ignorance and hatred. The prevalence of such symbols here in Dumb***istan makes it abundantly clear that there are lots of people wanting to embrace nothing of the sort.
And yet, having said all of that, I have to say that not allowing that young Dumb***istani kid to wear his Confederate battle flag shirt was a mistake. The right approach would have been to have him stand up in front of the entire student body and explain what it was and why he chose to display it so. Then follow up with someone spending only five or ten minutes explaining what it really stands for and making the kid look like the racist fool he appears to want to be.
Instead, now his fear and ignorance will be shielded from the glare of open and honest examination by all. In the shadows it can find at least some protection and sympathy, which will allow it to continue and perhaps even to grow.
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| Needs $ For More Peroxide? | Sep 17th. at 2:20:33 pm EDT
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NightLad (Toronto, Ontario) - Email Me
From the article: "In 1997 Timothy Castorina sued after he was suspended for wearing... a Confederate flag... and THE SCHOOL SETTLED."
I think the last 3 words sum up the real motivation behind this case. LOL
She is a small-time model looking for her share of the yummy settlement pie, people. Nothing more, nothing less.
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| *sigh* | Sep 17th. at 1:36:34 pm EDT
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Dragon Goddess (Lawrenceville, Georgia) - Email Me
Old but true...those that smother, ignore, or try to hide the past and pretend it didn't happen are doomed to repeat it.
Symbols only have meaning-negative or otherwise-if we give it to them.
A rainbow is a beautiful light display.
666 is the number after 665.
A dogwood tree is just a tree.
A sand dollar is just a sand dollar.
Etc...
As long as that tshirt wasn't hindering anyone from learning-who cares what it had on it? The school should switch to uniforms. That would settle everything.
Peace to all.
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| I Grew Up In Alabama And Florida | Sep 17th. at 10:11:19 am EDT
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Marius Silverwolf (Christmas, Florida) - Email Me
I know, from the attempt by all my teachers to use objective approaches to the civil war in the very sensitive environments of central Alabama and central Florida, that slavery was not the only cause of the Civil War.
But it was the primary cause.
"No!" you say? "It was about States Rights!" you say? True, but the primary focus of those rights for over 50 years prior to South Carolina seceding was over the right of the slave owners to continue to own slaves and operate the plantations through the use of free labor while the number of slave free states continued to expand.
"Nonsense!" you cry? Read this (also linked below) : [Web LINK]
What started in the early and middle 1800s continues today. The overarching sentiment in the Southern United States is that change is bad, tradition is more important than progress, and that everybody should just leave well enough alone. It's a regional cultural approach that encourages trying to remain in the past instead of moving forward and embracing the present.
The Rebel Flag has an important part in historical displays, memorial cemeteries, and history museums, but outside of that context it serves as a reminder that an entire region of people refused to embrace change and instead of playing by the rules tried to take the ball and go home. It doesn't represent fighting a tyrannical government, it represents giving UP on government. That's not the kind of tradition or heritage that needs to be propagated, especially during the most divisive period of citizen sentiment toward the federal government since the Nixon era.
Find More info -- HERE
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