Posted on 01/06/2003 7:55:23 PM PST by stainlessbanner
At the beginning of the school year, Dixie Outfitters T-shirts were all the rage at Cherokee High School. Girls seemed partial to one featuring the Confederate battle flag in the shape of a rose. Boys often wore styles that discreetly but unmistakably displayed Dixie Outfitters' rebel emblem logo.
But now the most popular Dixie Outfitters shirt at the school doesn't feature a flag at all. It says: ''Jesus and the Confederate Battle Flag: Banned From Our Schools But Forever in Our Hearts.'' It became an instant favorite after school officials prohibited shirts featuring the battle flag in response to complaints from two African-American families who found them intimidating and offensive.
The ban is stirring old passions about Confederate symbols and their place in Southern history in this increasingly suburban high school, 40 miles northwest of Atlanta. Similar disputes over the flag are being played out more frequently in school systems -- and courtrooms -- across the South and elsewhere, as a new generation's fashion choices raise questions about where historical pride ends and racial insult begins.
Schools in states from Michigan to Alabama have banned the popular Dixie Outfitters shirts just as they might gang colors or miniskirts, saying they are disruptive to the school environment. The rebel flag's modern association with white supremacists makes it a flashpoint for racial confrontation, school officials say.
''This isn't an attempt to refute Southern heritage,'' said Mike McGowan, a Cherokee County schools spokesman. ''This is an issue of a disruption of the learning environment in one of our schools.''
Walter C. Butler Jr., president of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, said it is unreasonable to ask African Americans not to react to someone wearing the rebel flag. ''To ask black people to respect a flag that was flown by people who wanted to totally subjugate and dehumanize you -- that is totally unthinkable,'' he said.
But the prohibitions against flag-themed clothing have prompted angry students, parents, Confederate-heritage groups and even the American Civil Liberties Union to respond with protests and lawsuits that argue that students' First Amendment rights are being trampled in the name of political correctness.
''This is our heritage. Nobody should be upset with these shirts,'' said Ree Simpson, a senior soccer player at Cherokee who says she owns eight Confederate-themed shirts. ''During Hispanic Heritage Month, we had to go through having a kid on the intercom every day talking about their history. Do you think they allow that during Confederate History Month?''
Simpson said no one complains when African-American students wear clothes made by FUBU, a black-owned company whose acronym means ''For Us By Us.'' Worse, she says, school officials have nothing to say when black students make the biting crack that the acronym also means ''farmers used to beat us.'' Similarly, she says, people assume that members of the school's growing Latino population mean no harm when they wear T-shirts bearing the Mexican flag.
Simpson believes the rebel flag should be viewed the same way. The days when the banner was a symbol of racial hatred and oppression are long gone, she contends. Far from being an expression of hate, she says, her affection for the flag simply reflects Southern pride. ''I'm a country girl. I can't help it. I love the South,'' she said. ''If people want to call me a redneck, let them.''
It is a sentiment that is apparently widely shared at Cherokee, and beyond. The day after Cherokee Principal Bill Sebring announced the T-shirt ban on the school's intercom this fall, more than 100 students were either sent home or told to change clothes when they defiantly wore the shirts to school. In the weeks that followed, angry parents and Confederate heritage groups organized flag-waving protests outside the school and at several school board meetings.
''All hell broke loose,'' said Tom Roach, an attorney for the Cherokee County school system. When principals banned the shirts at other county high schools in the past, he said, ''there was no public outcry. No complaints. No problems.''
But the Confederate flag was a particularly hot topic in Georgia this year. Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes was upset in his re-election bid in part because he successfully pushed for redesign of the Georgia state flag, which was formerly dominated by the Confederate battle emblem. On the new state banner, the emblem is reduced to a small icon. During the campaign, Barnes' opponent, Sonny Perdue, called for a referendum on the new flag, a position that analysts say helped make him the state's first elected Republican governor since Reconstruction.
Elsewhere in the South, civil rights groups have mobilized to remove the banner in recent years. Activists had it removed from atop the South Carolina statehouse and from other public places, saying it is an insult to African Americans and others who view it as a symbol of bigotry and state-sanctioned injustice. But that campaign has stirred a resentful backlash from groups that view it as an attack on their heritage.
''We're not in a battle just for that flag, we're in a battle to determine whether our Southern heritage and culture survives,'' said Dan Coleman, public relations director for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, one of the groups that joined the protests at Cherokee High School.
The battle over Confederate-themed clothing has made its way to the courts, which generally have sided with school dress codes that prevent items that officials deem disruptive.
In a 1969 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent Community School District that school officials could not prohibit students from wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, but only because the court found that the armbands were not disturbing the school atmosphere.
By contrast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit earlier this year revived a lawsuit by two Kentucky students suspended for wearing shirts featuring the Confederate flag. The court said the reasons for the suspension were vague and remanded the case to a lower court, where it was dismissed after the school district settled with the students.
Also, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit earlier this fall sided with a Washington, N.J., student who challenged his school's ban on a T-shirt displaying the word ''redneck.'' The student was suspended from Warren Hills Regional High School for wearing the shirt, which school officials said violated their ban on clothing that portrays racial stereotypes. The school's vice principal said he took ''redneck'' to mean a violent, bigoted person.
But the court overturned the ban, saying the shirt was not proven to be disruptive. School officials, noting the school has a history of racial tensions, have promised to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
''Since last year, we have gotten well over 200 complaints about the banning of Confederate symbols in schools,'' said Kirk Lyons, lead counsel for the Southern Legal Resource Center, a North Carolina-based public-interest law firm that works to protect Confederate heritage and is in discussions with some families at Cherokee High School. He said the center is litigating six lawsuits and that dozens of others challenging Confederate clothing bans have been filed across the country.
As the controversy grows, Confederate-themed clothing has become more popular than ever. The owner of Georgia-based Dixie Outfitters says the firm sold 1 million T-shirts last year through the company's Web site and department stores across the South. Most of the shirts depict Southern scenes and symbols, often with the Confederate emblem.
''This is not your typical, in-your-face redneck type of shirt,'' said Dewey Barber, the firm's owner. ''They are espousing the Southern way of life. We're proud of our heritage down here.''
Barber said he is ''troubled'' that his shirts are frequently banned by school officials who view them as offensive. ''You can have an Iraqi flag in school. You can have the Russian flag. You can have every flag but the Confederate flag. It is puzzling and disturbing,'' he said.
But comparisons between the systems of taxation between 1860 and 2003 aren't valid. In 1860 the government was funded almost exclusively by tariffs. That was a consumption tax in almost it's purest form. For the south to have paid 84% of the tariff it would have had to consume 84% of the imported goods or 84% of the output of the industries protected by the tariff. How was that possible?
How would common sense tell me that? 1/4 of the people paid 84% of the taxes in the year 2000. I don't find this hard to believe at all.
Common sense would tell you that if you were honest.
It's nonsense. The record shows that 95% of the tariff revenue came through northern ports. Two ports in the south actually LOST money. It cost more to operate them than the amount of money they generated.
Facts are inconvenient, aren't they?
You deserve to be called names because this has been posted directly to you before and you still spout the lies.
Walt
The point is that Lincoln summoned Gen. Butler to meet him in Washington via telegram. Do you really think Butler refused to meet Lincoln?
I don't recall the text of the telegram saying that Butler was to meet with Lincoln, only that he was to come to Washington. There is no corroboration that they met. You need to show that, in order to bolster the interpretation you espouse.
That interpretation is at odds with many public pronouncements in this period by both Lincoln and Butler.
It's shaky to the point of collapse.
Walt
They should be able to. Do you suppose the two groups are competing for which is more childish?
Shalom.
Was the term "economic development" used in the 1860's? Probably not.
You forgot this, didn't you?
"The next evil that my friend complained of, was the Tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters, this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together-- every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself. And if it be true, to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend, that every man in the North, that works in iron and brass and wood, has his muscle strengthened by the protection of the government, that stimulant was given by his vote, and I believe every other Southern man. So we ought not to complain of that.
[Mr. Toombs: That tariff lessened the duties.]
[Mr. Stephens:[ Yes, and Massachusetts, with unanimity, voted with the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked them to be, and those are the rates they are now at. If reason and argument, with experience, produced such changes in the sentiments of Massachusetts from 1832 to 1857, on the subject of the tariff, may not like changes be effected there by the same means, reason and argument, and appeals to patriotism on the present vexed question? And who can say that by 1875 or 1890, Massachusetts may not vote with South Carolina and Georgia upon all those questions that now distract the country and threaten its peace and existence? I believe in the power and efficiency of truth, in the omnipotence of truth, and its ultimate triumph when properly wielded. (Applause.)"
-- Alexander Stephens, November, 1860
Your interpretation is devoid of reference to the historical record.
Your interpretation is fantasy.
Walt
as for our battleflag, maro is in 3 words: WRONG,WRONG, WRONG! the battleflag of dixie means JUST one thing to the VAST MAJORITY of southrons = FREEDOM from OPPRESSION/ancester worship. nothing more/nothing less!
all the combined LIES of all the self-righteous damnyankee & scalawags in the universe can NOT change that!
FRee dixie,sw
i PERSONALLY know a "very nice lady" here in yankee-occupied VA that believes SINCERELY that the pictures of men on the moon were made up in hollywood OR are "claymation".
finding one blind person in the world says ZILCH about the vison of the mass of the globe's population.
FRee dixie,sw
FRee dixie,sw
the WBTS was about JUST ONE major cause:
FREEDOM FOR DIXIE.nothing more, nothing less.
the greatest SHAME of all was that the self-serving, arrogant, racist, anti-semetic damnyankee elites were UNWILLING to see dixie go her own way & that at least a MILLION LIVES were thrown away for that dubious goal.
FRee dixie NOW,sw
the FIRST AMENDMENT applies EVERYWHERE! let me say that in point of fact, the courts, largely controlled by persons of the so-called "liberal bent", have MIS-interpreted the Constitution to the benefit ONLY of the ELITES!
this is just one of the reasons that conservatives must work HARD to assure that the "liberals" NEVER again have the majority in either house of the congress AND that we follow W's 8 years with another 8 years of CONSERVATIVE administration AND pack the USSC & appeals courts with CONSERVATIVE, constitution-loving judges.
free dixie,sw
FRee dixie,sw
LOL!
FRee dixie,sw
ROTF! Let's see, Lincoln summons Butler to Washington for what?
Sightseeing?
A vacation?
To watch a play?
To meet with the President?
When one of your commanding officers summoned you, did you report to that commander or his subordinate? Or did you just ignore it?
ROTF! Let's see, Lincoln summons Butler to Washington for what?
I haven't found any credible indication that they even met during 1865. Neither have you.
Walt
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