If this isn’t a perfect example of political correctness run amok, I am not sure what is.
Of course this takes place in California.
From KTVU: Five students at a South Bay high school stirred up some controversy Wednesday for wearing t-shirts depicting red, white and blue American flags on Cinco de Mayo.
School officials at Live Oak High in Morgan Hill told the students they had to go home if they wouldn’t turn the shirts inside out.
One of the students said it appeared school administrators were worried the patriotic shirts could trigger fights.
Some students at Live Oak High in Morgan Hill said others were planning to come to school Thursday wearing red, white and blue.
Four of the five students who wore American flags or patriotic colors on campus walked into a meeting with the superintendent of the Morgan Hill unified school district Wednesday night.
They were facing unexcused absences because they chose to go home early rather than take off what they were wearing.
…Some Mexican-American students KTVU spoke with said they thought wearing red, white and blue on Cinco de Mayo was disrespectful.
“It’s just kinda disrespectful that they would do that on this day,” said student Victoria Wright. “I mean, we don’t go around on 4th of July wearing red white and green and saying ‘Viva Mexico,’ because that’s disrespectful.” [see video here]
How on earth is it possible that American students should be punished for wearing American flags on any day of the year? This is the sickness of political correctness. Did it not dawn on school officials that the “Mexican-American” students are Americans too and therefore should have no reason to feel “disrespected”.
Zombie from Pajamas Media makes some good points about all of this.
Zombie: Let’s pause for a moment and peel back the layers. It seems that many of the Hispanic students at Live Oak High (and probably innumerable other high schools across the country) have been so inculcated with an “identity politics” curriculum that, under the rubric of instilling pride and self-esteem, they have been convinced that they are somehow distinct from and separate from the other American students; that “we” feel disrespected when forced to perceive an American flag.
The school administration then stirs in their own toxic contribution: An assumption (typical of the “soft racism” of leftist ideology) that Hispanic students will respond with violence when they feel disrespected (“the patriotic shirts could trigger fights” is the euphemism they used). Even worse, fearing violence from Hispanic students, the adminstrators solve the crisis by banishing the “offensive” items, rather than warning students that any violence will be severely punished. In other words, the racist administrators insultingly assumed that their Hispanic students would erupt in violence at the sight of an American flag, and the only way to prevent this is to cower at the presumptive violence and preemptively cave in to the mob’s demands that American flags be banned from campus.
Are the United States and Mexico at war? Is May 5 some kind of “Hate America Day”? What the hell is going on here? Aren’t the U.S. and Mexico allies? Aren’t we friendly neighbors? What is the source of the friction? Isn’t the United States a melting pot where people of every ethnic heritage all live together in harmony as Americans — rather than being a collection of self-segregated ethnic enclaves seething with mutual hostility?
We have been fostering this type of “us vs. them” mentality for decades it is called diversity. Diversity creates this balkanization where hyphenated Americans start to get the notion that they are some sort of subset of American standing apart from the full American experience.
I think we should send this guy over to that school to teach a civic lesson.
Via: Memeorandum
Via: KTVU
Via: Pajamas Media