School District: Betsy Ross Flag Symbolizes “Hate”

Todd Starnes.com ^ | September 13, 2016 | Todd Starnes

[Kaslin]

A Michigan school district called the historic “Betsy Ross” flag a symbol of hate and profusely apologized after students displayed the flag at a recent high school football game.

“To wave a historical version of our flag, that to some symbolizes exclusion and hate, injects hostility and confusion to an event where no one intended to do so,” wrote Forest Hills Public Schools Superintendent Daniel Behm in a letter to parents.

The controversy surrounding the 13-star flag erupted on Sept. 9th during a football game between predominantly white Forest Hills Central High School and predominantly black Ottawa Hills High School, MLive reports.

Forest Hills students not only waved a “Betsy Ross” flag, but they also displayed a Donald Trump banner (behavior guaranteed to get you labeled deplorable).

At least one parent was “shocked” to hear students chanting, “USA” and wearing red, white and blue.

Oh, the horror.

“You can’t deny the overt, intentional racism and intimidation,” said Briana Urena-Ravelo, co-founder of the Grand Rapids Black Lives Matter group.

Ms. Urena-Ravelo, who represents a group that specializes in overt intentional racism and intimidation, told television station WOOD that the students intended to be racist.

“For these white kids from a white school to bring out a flag of the colonies with the ‘Make America Great Again’ Trump flag to a game with black students on the field, it’s all very obvious,” she told the television station.

Parent Matthew Patulski wrote a scathing Facebook diatribe – accusing students of “brandishing these symbols of nationalism and white supremacy.”

Supt. Behm fired off a wordy, two-page letter lecturing folks in the district about their “privilege” and apologizing to the inner city school.

“Whether our privileges are derived from the circumstances of our birth, our race, our geography, our work, or our wealth, our blind privileges can produce a poverty of perspective and understanding,” he wrote.

“Injecting partisan politics into a community football game and into a commemoration of the events of September 11th is inappropriate,” he wrote. ‘Parading our current United States flag in a manner that is inconsistent with proper etiquette is disrespectful to all who have served our nation.”

So let’s look at the facts:

1. The students wore red, white and blue because it was a “red, white and blue” theme night.

2. The students traditionally wear red, white and blue to commemorate Sept. 11th.

3. There are no local news reports of students using any sort of derogatory or racially offensive language.

4. The Betsy Ross flag is not racist.

5. A Trump “Make America Great Again” banner is not racist.

6. Supt. Daniel Behr is a pinhead

Parents and patriots in the Forest Hills Public Schools district should rise up and demand that the superintendent retract his offensive letter and apologize for smearing the brave teenagers who dared to show their American pride.

Oh, by the way – Mr. Patulski also took great offense because the students were chanting, “Go Green! Go White!”

“We were all quite taken aback by these loud chants,” he wrote.

That’s because the school colors are green and white, you self-righteous nincompoop.

[Kaslin]

I have never seen hogs with nose rings, but doing a search in Bing I found this one

[WKUHilltopper]

I grew up in the sticks...in hog country. It was very common.

[Chgogal]

Only a very deplorably uneducated person would think the Betsy Ross flag is a symbol of hate.

[Sgt_Schultze]

In Matty's open letter, he did reference this Wikipedia page as his reference source for his proclamation about the BR flag.

[Kaslin]

The poem

Barbara Frietchie

by John Greenleaf Whittier

Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand

Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,

Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,

Fair as a garden of the Lord

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall

When Lee marched over the mountain wall,—

Over the mountains winding down,

Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,

Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun

Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,

Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,

She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic window the staff she set,

To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,

Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right

He glanced: the old flag met his sight.

“Halt!”— the dust-brown ranks stood fast.

“Fire!”— out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;

It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff

Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;

She leaned far out on the window-sill,

And shook it forth with a royal will.

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,

But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,

Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred

To life at that woman’s deed and word:

“Who touches a hair of yon gray head

Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.

All day long through Frederick street

Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tost

Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell

On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light

Shone over it with a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er,

And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.

Honor to her! and let a tear

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall’s bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie’s grave

Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw

Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down

On thy stars below in Frederick town!

[DiogenesLamp]

I am no longer interested in polite, reasonable dialogue with these people. It’s a Culture War. They need to lose They need to be ground into the dust. No half measures. It’s Us or Them.

You want to win? We need to start Taxing Hollywood, taxing Google and other "tech" companies, filing FEC charges against the media, filing discrimination lawsuits against the media, challenging their licenses, demanding RICO prosecutions against the media for colluding with Democrats to swing elections, and so on.

We need to cut the throat the Liberal class speaks with. We need to attack and destroy the ability of Liberals to speak their mind to the populace.

The media system is a weapon, and we need to take it away from them and turn it's power back against them. So long as they remain in possession of that weapon, we are destined to keep losing.

[DiogenesLamp]

Urena-Ravelo is a founder of Black Lives Matter and homosexual who wants to “make straight white boys cry”

She would be bitchslapped to the floor in her first encounter. She is trying to make up for in bitchiness what she lacks in ability to make anyone take her seriously.

[Altura Ct.]

Only a very deplorably uneducated person would think the Betsy Ross flag is a symbol of hate.

The premise is that slavery existed, most founders had slaves and it was legal all under the US flag at least starting in 1776. Most whites don't get it. If race and 'racism' is why the Confederate flag is a symbol of 'hate and evil' then so is our founding, our founders, our history and symbols. In fact it can be extrapolated that America is an evil oppressive nation until 1865 for sure and it is not stretch to push it until 1965(the so called Civil Rights act) and even until current day. Whites will either push back as whites or eventually be swallowed whole. I am not ashamed...Are you?

[jsanders2001]

> I could sure use that to sit in the middle of my corn field.

It might even scare the Jeepers Creepers guy off...

[thecodont]

Seriously?

[DiogenesLamp]

Your premise is flawed because it’s assumes that you can reason with these drug addled fruitcakes. Truth, logic, and reasoning will get you nowhere with people who are clinically insane and driven by death cult ideologies.

Agreed. The proper way to engage a person such as this is to walk up to her and knock her the F*** out.

[DiogenesLamp]

So-called “academics” are often the stupidest people you will ever meet.

“There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”

― George Orwell

[Kaslin]

And that moron proved beyond any doubt that she is a very ignorant and uneducated person.

[DiogenesLamp]

I wonder if these people understand the kind of fire they’re playing with and how close we are to the black flag going up and the throat slitting to start.

I just saw this yesterday over at "Curmudgeonly and Skeptical."

The guy that runs that website mentions Free Republic. I think he's a freeper, but I don't know what his freepname would be.

[DiogenesLamp]

That nose ring and the stretched ear lobes make quite a statement.

Yes, primitive "bone through the nose" jewelry and body modification always makes me think "Rocket Scientist."

[Ray76]

She’d probably enjoy a firm hand.

[DiogenesLamp]

If miss Ravelo is an immigrant—and has taken an oath to support the Constitution—she should be booted out, for effectively repudiating what she has sworn to uphold. There is no way anyone can take this sort of a stand against the original American flag, that is in anyway consistent with the stated purpose of the Constitution.

I'm thinking you can only get this sort of weapon grade stupidity from homegrown idiots. Actual African immigrants are generally thrilled to be in America.

[GOYAKLA]

Black Loser Moaning!

[DiogenesLamp]

She’d probably enjoy a firm hand.

I expect you are right about that.

[jsanders2001]

> Agreed. The proper way to engage a person such as this is to walk up to her and knock her the F*** out.

I think employing a bulldyke lesbian to beat the snot out of limp wristed drag queen would be appropriate in this situation. I'll just say, "hey see that guy over there? He's trying to hit on your girl"...: )