Kid on the way to the gym pulled off his outer shirt to reveal a different one underneath. AN altercation ensued.
"The undershirt the white student wore had a confederate flag on the front with the words "Keep it flying." On the back, a cartoon depicted a group of hooded Klansmen standing outside a church, waving to two others who had just pulled away in a car reading "Just married."
"Two black men in nooses were being dragged behind."
The best(?) part of this article is this quote from the kid in question:
"I'm not racist or anything," he said. "It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else."
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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You know you're in for an interesting statement when it begins with "I'm not racist or anything". I don't think I've ever heard words to that effect said when they weren't directly followed by an incredibly racist remark. It's as though the people who say this know that being a racist is supposed to be a bad thing, and they know that they themselves are not bad people, so their prejudice against an entire group of people based on their race must be something other than racism.
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He's not racist, yet he hates black people. He hates black people, yet... "The 18-year-old said he has friends who are black, and he said he does not think they would be mad at him"
I think this kid has some sanity issues to deal with also.
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Hey, and he's enlisted in the Marines! Just who I want representing my country overseas. Sure hope he doesn't get sent on a peacekeeping mission in Africa.
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That's actually the best thing for him. Once he has some black guys in his unit, he'll realize they're just like him, except tanner. One thing the armed forces quickly eradicated was racism. The bonds formed by severe mental, emotion, and physical stress easily transcend race.
And actually, from what I've been told, Africans hate black people. I don't have an first hand experience with that, being neither black nor african, but more than one person who's been there told me that.
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Incidently, hating some black people doesn't make you racist. Hating some black people because they are black, or because blackness inherently implies some bad characteristic to you, makes you racist.
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This kid was lucky they didnt really jump him. With that shirt I think getting off with a punch in the nose was getting off easy
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quote:"It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else."
If he is actually not racist, then that last sentence was worded really really really poorly. Maybe he could have said, "and some of the people I don't get a long with just so happen to be black people." At least that would imply that that he doesn't hate all black people or that his hatred is limited to black people.
So maybe he's not racist. He's still really really stupid. I think a five year old would understand why a shirt like that would be offensive.
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quote:Originally posted by Noemon: You know you're in for an interesting statement when it begins with "I'm not racist or anything". I don't think I've ever heard words to that effect said when they weren't directly followed by an incredibly racist remark.
quote: And if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that the surest way of identifying a multi-level marketing scheme is when you are told, "This is not a multi-level marketing scheme." It's the same as how when people begin a sentence with, "Now, I'm not a racist, but...," you can be certain you're about to hear something very racist, such as, "I'm not a racist, but I understand all people from Mongolia eat their young." (This also works for sentences beginning with, "I don't want to be rude" and "I don't mean to gossip.")
posted
My favorite example of this (that I've actually heard in person, with my own ears) has to be "Now, I ain't no racist or nothin', but I just can't get along with them damned Chinese. There's just somethin' about them."
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I think that by the time people say "To make a long story short", it is far too late for that.
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It's going to be hard to find anyone who doesn't think that wearing that shirt was a completely stupid idea and very disrespectful to a lot of people, heck if I were student there I would have been offended by it and I'm not black.
I do agree, though, that this kid himself might be salvagable and the enlisting in the Marines gives me hope. Any area with high discipline where you have to depend on one another will help erase bigoted feelings. Fire and police are usually the same way, though it's not uncommon for them to split - they will wind up having no problem with people they work with, but still use disparaging language to refer to the members of the minority public they deal with.
My step-father was one of the most bigoted people I ever knew, and it was one reason my mother left him, honestly, it got to be too much to take. He used to tell me (as if passing on bits of wisdom) that there were three kinds of black people: First there were cops, like him. And they were okay, because they were cops. Then there were people who were "just black people" because they made attempts to lift themselves up and be better people through education or hard work and thirdly there were (insert epithet), and that was the vast majority of them and they just weren't worth anything.
Then, he would tell you he wasn't a racist because he went to a black doctor. But of course, that black doctor was in category number 2, so he was okay.
*shudder*
typing that brings back bad memories, let me tell ya
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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If you guys really want to get back on topic, fine...
How should the student have been punished? The shirt is protected by free speech, so the only rule he was breaking was the school's dress code, and that doesn't usually get much disciplinary action beyond changing clothes. Should both people in the fight be punished equally, or does one deserve more punishment than the other?
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Belle, I hope that his ideas don't influence his job. It's especially worrisome because he's a cop.
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camus, he's not a cop any longer, he was fired years ago for something unrelated to racism - he stole something. Actually he stole many things. He even stole money from me, but that's a long story and not relevant to this discussion.
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quote:Any area with high discipline where you have to depend on one another will help erase bigoted feelings.
Well, I don't know. I know a couple of Marines that served in the Gulf War, and while they aren't racist toward the races that were represented in their companies, they are pretty horribly bigoted toward Arabs. If there had been people of Arabic descent in their companies I suspect that the split that you talk about would have occurred.
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Most school dress codes include (or should) a caveat prohibiting clothes with slogans or images that are "potentially offensive or inappropriate for a learning environment." I would think this t-shirt would be covered under that. Dress code violations are usually covered under the school's rules/code of conduct, which is distributed to the students, and the penalties can range from staying in the office until your mother brings you a change of clothes to wearing gym clothes for the rest of the day and having the offensive item confiscated until the end of the year to ATS or suspension for repeat offenders. I think that's entirely appropriate and should be exercised at the school's discretion.
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I agree, kq, I know my kids school handbooks include a clause like that in the dress code. Some schools go even further and say no shirts with any writing at all are allowed.
He should have had the shirt confiscated and given another t-shirt to wear for the day, or he should have been sent home on a one-day suspension. The punishment the school uses should be outlined in the school's policies.
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I think the appropriate punishment for wearing something racist is to be thought of as a racist.
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I wrote Dixie Outpost a letter. Kids at my high school wore DO shirts all the time, but this goes way over the line. :angry:
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quote:Should both people in the fight be punished equally, or does one deserve more punishment than the other?
I'd say the one who actually hit his fellow student in the head because he didn't like the latter's shirt should be the one getting a heavier punishment. Oddly, the article fails to say whether he'd been penalized at all.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Instigating a fight is worse then participating in the fight that is instigated. If you wear a shirt like that to school, you've already started teh fight. Its just a question of who actually throws the first punch.
Its like war: The aggressor nation isn't always the one who fires the first shot. Sometimes its the nation that chokes off the other nation's supply routes.
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It's analogous, then? Cutting off a supply route does damage to the country, even if war hasn't been declared. The analogous case would be a country going to war because some other country insulted it. Which wouldn't be any more reasonable.
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quote:Instigating a fight is worse then participating in the fight that is instigated. If you wear a shirt like that to school, you've already started teh fight. Its just a question of who actually throws the first punch.
Would you apply the same logic to someone who burns the flag in front of a West Point reunion?
Not that I think burning a flag is as bad as this shirt, but in either situation one knows a fight is likely.
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quote:Instigating a fight is worse then participating in the fight that is instigated. If you wear a shirt like that to school, you've already started teh fight.
No. You haven't started a fight, you have intentionally offended people. If we say it's okay to slug anyone that offends you, then we're in for a whole lotta slugging going on.
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"Would you apply the same logic to someone who burns the flag in front of a West Point reunion?"
Yup. You have to know that you're gonna be bloody at the end of the day if you do that. High School is worse, cause kids haven't really learned restraint as well as adults have. The racist started the fight... he just didn't throw the first punch.
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quote:Would you apply the same logic to someone who burns the flag in front of a West Point reunion?
As regards the response of law enforcement, yes. The guy may be insane, but "he was asking for it" is never much of a justification for violent crime.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I'd agree with the dress code concept. There are already guidelines in place for clothing that is unsuitable to wear, and the overall reason is usually that wearing such clothes would be disruptive. I'd say this qualifies.
And the kid who hit him did get punished, they're just nonspecific as to how: "Clay County school officials said the incident is isolated and both students involved were disciplined 'quickly and appropriately,' although they would not release specifics citing privacy concerns."
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