Replies

An Associated Press story, just posted to the W.Va. wire:

UNION, W.Va. (AP) The Monroe County School Board has declined a request by the NAACP to ban Confederate flag symbols in schools.

  Larry Baxter, president of the Greenbrier County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, asked the board Tuesday to reconsider its December decision not to ban the emblems. There is no NAACP chapter in Monroe County.

  Some white students at James Monroe High School have been wearing shirts, jackets, caps and belt buckles with the emblems on them. Blacks consider the flag a racist symbol that should not be tolerated in public schools, Baxter had told the board in January.

  The board told Baxter then it could not take action because the subject was not on the agenda. This week Baxter was on the agenda and repeated his request.   "I don't like the stance you've taken," he said. "I think it's wrong. ... I'm appealing to your sense of fairness."

  He urged board members to take a stand on the issue.
  Board members listened, but when Baxter had finished moved on to other business with no comment or explanation.
  The Monroe County dress code prohibits attire that "may be considered derogatory toward a race, culture or religion."

  Board president Charlie Sams told The Register-Herald of Beckley that the board does not plan to fine-tune the policy. It prefers to leave it up to each principal. If there is a problem at a school and the principal chooses to ban the emblems, the board will support the decision, he said.

  Principals at the county's two middle schools have already taken that action. James Monroe Principal Christy Parker is reluctant to do so.

"We've got some kids who feel very strongly about their right to wear these things," schools Superintendent Lyn Guy said. "We're dancing around the issue of free speech."

  Based on First Amendment court cases, an attorney has advised the board to not ban the emblems unless it is in response to an actual disruption in the school, Guy said.

  No complaints have been received from black students. The incident that brought the issue to a head was a rap song written by a group of white students criticizing "redneck" students who wear the flag emblems.

"It's not really a racial incident," Guy said. "It's more of a clique incident. At least that's the way it's perceived by the school."

  Instead of banning the emblems, Parker is organizing sensitivity training sessions for white students, Guy said. Black speakers will be invited to give presentations.
  West Virginia is 95 percent white and only 3.2 percent of the population is black, according to the U.S. Census. There are few blacks in Monroe County.

"Our students don't have experience with people of color," Guy said. "The Confederate flag is just a small part of that. The larger picture is kids getting a perspective they don't have right now. When they get that perspective, hopefully they won't do things perceived by others as being derogatory."
  AP-CS-02-05-04 0928ES

No complaints have been received from black students.

Why would the NAACP make an issue out of a non-issue, especially in a community where they have no presence?

So the bottom line is that while the school board refuses to issue a fatwa against American heritage, it will make special arrangements for an NGO to send in propagandists to pule, puke, and moan at the students and try to intimidate them morally. That's good.

Way to steward that stewardship. I'm impressed.