Fleming senior wears racist T-shirt to school

Jacksonville.com ^ | 9.15.05 | BRAD SCHMIDT

[conserv13]

"What's up with your shirt?"

Those are the words a former senior at Fleming Island High School remembers hearing as he walked from his fifth-period algebra class toward the gym. The 18-year-old, who is not being identified due to his family's concerns of safety, had just taken off his Dixie Outfitter T-shirt, exposing a highly offensive shirt.

"What about it?" replied the 18-year-old, skinny and white.

"Well, you know it's racial," said a black student, now in a group confronting the 18-year-old.

"Yeah. So?"

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.

Upset by the shirt, a 17-year-old black student hit the white student in the head. A crowd of about 100 students gathered to watch the Aug. 29 fight before authorities intervened.

[dfwgator]

I'd shake the hand of the guy who wore this "Che" T-shirt.

[wideawake]

Just remember it when its you and yours

If that was my kid I would have punched him in the head first.

[Mark was here]

If there's any justice, he's wearing a couple of black eyes right now.

Blaming the kid for others lacking self control and their demonstrating a basic lack of comprehension of what it means to respect the rights of their fellow citizens...

is like:

Blaming Walmart for the looters lacking self control and their demonstrating a basic lack of apprehension of what it means to respect the rights of their fellow citizens...

because:

Both should not of provided an opportunity for the misfits.

[stainlessbanner]

To the majority of America - the Confederate flag is seen as the symbol of racists.

They believe this crap on DU. Go sell it over there, son.

[Gay State Conservative]

So, he's joining the Marines. I wonder what THIS Marine will think of that t-shirt? He's the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, John L. Estrada

It's highly unlikely that this kid will be allowed into the Marines....or the Army,Navy,Air Force or Coast Guard.

And understandably so.

[jude24]

Your position makes a world of sense - and I will concede immediately that this is what most decent (non-racist!) Southerners see when they see the Confederate flag.

You must remember, however, that African-Americans and Northerners are taught the Civil War differently than the South is. We're taught that the Civil War was about a Southern Rebellion for fear that Lincoln would end slavery, upon which the agrarian South depended. Very few Northerners realize that Southerners remember the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression," or at least "The War Between the STates," and see it as a noble defense of one's home and the cause of State's Rights.

This is a matter of perspective. I know enough not to assume that a Confederate flag implies that its wearer is racist. Many people, however, do not - and their assumption is not without reasonable cause.

[varyouga]

I thought this was another BS story about the Confederate flag.

But the picture on the back is just ridiculous. I'd probably kick his ass even though I'm not black. Idiots like this stir up the reparations/entitlement mentality that is popular among blacks today.

[DumpsterDiver]

Frankly if this is on a Dixie Outfitters shirt, I'm disappointed.

I'm taking the following to mean that the offensive t-shirt was on underneath the one from Dixie Outfitters, unless I'm reading it wrong.

The 18-year-old... had just taken off his Dixie Outfitter T-shirt, exposing a highly offensive shirt.

[Hi Heels]

I think they're BOTH appalling and the result of bad parenting advocating disrespect and "get whatever you want everything you do is ok" atmospheres within the home. Grow up, yes. But grow up RIGHT. People need to get back to basics and act like they have some class.

[L98Fiero]

I picture him on a hot roof laying out shingles, strung out on meth.

[DoraC]

There's a critical difference between a racist American group appropriating the American flag and the history of the Confederate flag. There were almost 100 years of oppression of blacks by racists who invariably used the Confederate flag

A shame, really. It conceals the fact that many Confederates were vehemently opposed to slavery and that they held themselves to higher ethical standards in treating civilians in the Civil War than the Union forces.

[AppyPappy]

You and a clue are mutally exclusive unless you believe that a Bush bumper sticker is the equivalent of a racist T-shirt

[DilJective]

So, you wouldn't mind someone punching you for your "words"? How about wife-beaters? Are they justified for hitting their wives during arguments? How about the kid who talks back to the parent and gets a black-eye? Or, are these actions not justified?

Either you want all violence justified, or none.

Why does your race matter in this? Do you feel guilty about something? I'm pretty sure that you never held a person's color against him, right?

I hope you were just as outraged at the rappers condoning the killing of cops. And, as outraged at Kanye West for saying that soldiers were instructed to kill "them" in New Orleans.

There is no reason to justify hitting someone over a t-shirt, no matter how stupid it is.

[Gelato]

Free speech does not include the right to threaten murder.

The boy's shirt called for the murder of blacks.

[trisham]

Welcome to Free Republic.

[gdani]

It was making light of lynching. Treating it as funny. That could be viewed as "advocacy," although it isn't direct advocacy.

Wat he was doing was deliberately trying to provoke a reaction. The kid is obviously stupid. But I refuse to believe he was so stupid he didn't understand what would happen to him.

I agree violence against the kid is uncalled for but I can't say with certainty that I wouldn't have done the same thing.

[azhenfud]

As I posted, with "rights" come "responsibility".

Exercise your "right", slash my tires, and get caught and if I can I'll help teach you a lesson in "responsibility".

Stick a bumper sticker on your car that says "I Voted for Kerry" and I'll just nod my head and go my way.

[mudblood]

"Racist or not, we either have free speech or we don't. If the left-wingers have the "free speech" to engage in overtly treasonous behavior, then this kid should have the free speech right to express his own beliefs, however odious"

Defending the racist here because of some misused rights is like the ACLU defending pedophiles who "only publish literature" (ie., how to seduce a kid). Yes, the racist has a right to be a jerk, and not get hit because of it - I say, So what?

Unrelated to my take on your take:
If I saw someone burning an American Flag, and nobody was looking - and I could take him - I'd have to beat his ass. Then I'd spend the next week looking over my shoulder in fear that somehow I'd get caught for it, but that's another story.

[kellynla]

Well this clown is going to be in for a rude awakening when he gets to P.I.
We don't tolerate racism in the Corps. PERIOD

Semper Fi,
Kelly

[jude24]

It is a shame. It is not historically accurate to equate the Confederacy with racism (especially since the North was not exactly a beacon of enlightened race-relations itself at the time).

The popular perception of the Confederate flag, however, does equate it with racism, particularly up here in the North and amongst non-whites everywhere. It does not matter whether or not the Confederacy was or was not racist, because, in reality, perception is all the reality that matters.