David Crockett Students Are Upset Over Confederate Flag Issue
AP
Students and parents at one Tri-Cities school don’t agree with a decision by the school to not allow any t-shirts, flags or other items with the rebel flag symbol on it. SOUND OFF: Is this infringing on students’ freedom of speech? Were the flags being used to pay tribute or intimidate fellow students?
Bill Christian
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By Bill Christian
Anchor / Reporter / WJHL
Published: November 14, 2008
Controversy is swirling at one high school in the Tri-Cities. Several viewers contacted News Channel 11 asking why the rebel flag had been from David Crockett High School.
“They are trying to make them take the stickers off their cars and everything,“
said Devon Lewis, student.
Parents also have issue with the new rule.
“I believe that people should be able to fly the flags they like to fly without everybody getting their feelings hurt,“ said Shawn Berry, parent.
Students said they were told by the school on Wednesday that the rebel flag or t-shirts and other items with the rebel flag on it will not be allowed at the school. Lewis said that students were bringing the rebel flag to school in honor of fellow student Michael Payne who recently died after an ATV accident.
Lewis also told us that several fights broke out at the school between white and Hispanic students, and then the announcement was made to not allow the rebel flag.
“I don’t believe it’s a racial issue at all, it’s just a tribute to Michael,“ Lewis said.
Officials with Washington County Schools did acknowledge Crockett’s principal is not allowing the rebel flag symbol at school.
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Posted by ( Lady Val ) on November 18, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Let’s face it. The problem here is the (correct) perception that only ONE viewpoint is banned. We’ve all seen it. You can’t fly Confederate flags (of any type), but you can fly the Mexican flag or some other movement’s banner. As I’ve noted, I’ve seen tee-shirts with communist terrorist Che Guevera worn in schools to no comment whatsoever.
The simple fact is that there is a double standard. Only SOME types of expression get censored, not all. Only SOME people being offended (and sometimes not even actually being offended) causes angst in the establishment. And this isn’t just a matter of an attempt to limit opinions INTENDED to excite anger and hatred. It is a definite, scripted, ongoing censorship of certain points of view that are unacceptable among the “politically correct” - which is what most of our “educators” and “social workers” and other minions of the Nanny State in fact, are.
The constant efforts to deny Americans of all ages their right to display Confederate symbols - including the battle flag - at their jobs, their schools and even on their streets is entirely counter to the letter and spirit of the law - and it should be fought wherever it rears its ugly head.
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Posted by ( crys ) on November 18, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Rob,
Thank you for the response posted below to my post…while I agree with you that any and all of those materials could be labeled a distraction…I suppose the key to deciding what is or is not to be banned is that the powers that be (school boards, principals) are given authority according the the dress and conduct codes to use their discretion on items not specifically mentioned in the written text…and while all logos could be banned like discussed by you and others that would make little difference….my child spent two years as a student in western Tennessee where there were uniform requirements…strict rules on shirt colors and pant colors…what kind of jackets were allowed etc….the distraction then became accessories like earrings and hairbows…and how much the cost of the uniform was…a walmart or target uniform shirt versus those from lands-end and even some designer catalogs…it seems that controlling the student body with rules…students get creative and always find that loop hole
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Posted by ( Robin ) on November 18, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I agree with Rob’s post. I feel that there should be a dress code in all schools. I think that any child from grades K-12 should NOT be allowed to wear any clothing with ANY sorts of pictures or words on them at all.That would also mean that the back packs, folders, ect would have to be plain jane with no pictures on them. They took those stupid back packs that roll out of schools because they were messing up the floors now they need to remove the important things that really matter from the public schools. Our kids should be sent to school to learn, not fuss and fight over what color, band, race car driver, flag, or whatever else the other students are wearing ! To me this all just stupid !
Teaching our kids to fight over such silly things as this is a shame ! I think some of the adults in this subject are just as childish as our children!
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Posted by ( Lady Val ) on November 18, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Let us say that schools have BECOME “inappropriate”. There was a time when that was not so though, of course, the fact is that history is always written by the winner and therefore the “history” of the War of Secession is singularly one-sided. However, the facts are out there if people want to know them. I won’t say “truth” because truth is subjective. Different people can come up with different “truth” using the same facts. Facts, on the other hand, are objective. 2 + 2 = 4; there is nothing subjective about that neither is the matter open to debate except on some strange level of quantum physics where nothing is what it seems.
However, it is true that “government schools” were set up for the purposes of indoctrination rather than education and we have reached a point at which no sane and objective person can either doubt that fact or believe that education is any longer even a distant objective in our current system. Therefore, I reject what passes for “schooling” these days. If one is lucky enough to get a good private school (even the Catholic schools are full of PC), that is fine. Otherwise, if parents want well educated children who accept their values, don’t have STDs and aren’t pregnant at 15, homeschooling is the way to go.
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Posted by ( scott cottrill ) on November 18, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Dear Son and Val, Thanks for the rousing and informative discussion. It’s obvious that between you, you both have more knowledge of the flag and its contrioversy than all the others posters combined. However, it still does not answer the main point I was making, which is the contention of the inappropriateness of government schools in the first place.
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Posted by ( SonoftheSouth ) on November 18, 2008 at 12:08 pm
The flag that Miles had favored when he was chair of the Committee on the Flag and Seal eventually became the battle flag and, ultimately, the most popular flag of the Confederacy. According to historian John Coski, Miles’ design was inspired by one of the many “secessionist flags” flown at the South Carolina secession convention of December, 1860. That flag was a blue St George’s Cross (an upright or Latin cross) on a red field, with 15 white stars on the cross, on the red field, palmetto and crescent symbols. Miles received a variety of feedback on this design, including a critique from Charles Moise, a self-described “Southerner of Jewish persuasion”. Moise liked the design, but asked that “the symbol of a particular religion not be made the symbol of the nation.“ Taking this into account, Miles changed his flag, removing the palmetto and crescent, and substituting a heraldic saltier (“X”) for the upright one. The number of stars was changed several times as well. He described these changes and his reasons for making them in early 1861. The diagonal cross was preferable, he wrote, because “it avoided the religious objection about the cross (from the Jews and many Protestant sects), because it did not stand out so conspicuously as if the cross had been placed upright thus.“ He also argued that the diagonal cross was “more Heraldric than Ecclesiastical, it being the ‘saltire’ of Heraldry, and significant of strength and progress
Although Miles described his flag as a heraldic saltier, it has been erroneously described since the latter part of the 19th century as a cross, specifically a Saint Andrew’s Cross. This folk legend sprang from the memoirs of an aging Confederate officer published in 1893. According to Coski, the Saint Andrew’s Cross had no special place in Southern iconography at the time, and if Miles had not been eager to conciliate the Southern Jews his flag would have used the traditional Latin, Saint George’s Cross. A colonel named James B. Walton submitted a battle flag design essentially identical to Miles’ except with an upright Saint George’s cross, but Beauregard chose the diagonal cross design.
Specifically, the St. Andrew’s Cross is a white saltier on a blue field, as in the national flag of Scotland. The St. Patrick’s Cross, as in the state flag of Alabama, is a red saltier on a white field. The Army of Northern Virginia battle flag has a blue saltier on a red field and is, therefore, neither the St. Andrew’s nor the St. Patrick’s Cross but a saltier as in the proposed but unadopted Second National flag.
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Posted by ( Lady Val ) on November 18, 2008 at 11:50 am
The “Saltaire” of heraldry is certainly one definition, but many Southerners were Scots-Irish in their ancestry and adopted the Cross of St. Andrew as the meaning for the “x” cross on the battle flag. Therefore, it is as correct to say that it represented the Cross of St. Andrew as it is to say that it was representative of an heraldic device without any religious meaning.
As well, the flag “evolved” from a simple cross to one with stars - and so forth. As it developed, it took on different meanings depending upon the source and who fought under it. We must also consider the fact that the people of the South were deeply religious. One cannot imagine them having a flag with a known symbol of the Cross and not bestowing upon it religious significance whether or not that was the intent of its original designer.
Of course, it is also interesting to look and see where that particular heraldic device originally meant. It could be that, in the end, the Cross of St. Andrew is in fact the correct definition.
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Posted by ( Freedomman ) on November 18, 2008 at 11:41 am
THE SOUTHERN CAUSE
by Duval Porter
Oh, Righteous Cause, for which we fought,..And for which thousands died,..We glory in it as we ought. And point to it with pride.
The Cause for which our fathers bled,..In Revolution days. The right of self-defense instead..Of tresonable ways.
No “Cause” is “Lost” that has the right,..Success is often wrong,..Tho’ seemingly it wins the fight,..The honors still belong
To those in failure or defeat,..Who tried and did their best,..As long as noble hearts shall beat..Within the human breast.
Was Russia right and Poland wrong..Contending for its place,..Among the nations, brave and long,..‘Till crush’d by power base?
The rev’rence all true Southrons feel,..No foes can over-awe..For Cause that ever will appeal,..With all the force of law.
And yet today we are as true..To country’s flag as they,..Who bore it then and wore the Blue..‘Gainst those who wore the Gray.
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Posted by ( scott cottrill ) on November 18, 2008 at 11:12 am
Thanks for the clarification. I have heard several LOS friends refer to it as St. Andrews Cross.
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Posted by ( SonoftheSouth ) on November 18, 2008 at 10:24 am
St. Andrew’s Cross is not the correct name for the Confederate Battle Flag. The Confederate Battle Flag is the correct name for the Confederate Battle Flag. The “X” or Saltire found on the Confederate Battle flag as described by William Porcher Miles, designer of the Confederate Battle Flag never claimed it to be a St. Andrew’s cross design, but rather a heraldic saltire without religious symbolism.
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