South Carolina Ping 
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Posted on 12/01/2018 4:47:11 AM PST by buckalfa
PENDLETON, SC (WSPA) - The death of a high school student in a tragic crash may have sparked a racial divide and caused school threats on social media.
It all started with an idea to honor 17 year old Dillon Padgett who was killed in a crash not far from Pendleton High School on Saturday. That idea ended with threats to bring weapons to the school.
Padgett is best described by his friends as patriotic. So those grieving friends tell 7News they honored him on Monday at the high school by donning confederate flag shirts and taking a group picture with a flag.
"A student's freedom of expression is protected unless there is a substantial threat for disruption," said Superintendent Joanne Avery.
Avery said it's important to note that on that day there was no threat, it wasn't until Tuesday that the situation began to escalate.
"It's demeaning to African American students because of its history," said Erica Gantt who is Pendleton mother of four.
Erica Gantt along with other District 4 parents said the display of this flag has sparked racial tensions inside the school walls.
"My son he's an African American student who's never dealt with this and he's not upset, but more so like why is this going on," Gantt said.
With students taking sides on social media, hateful words turned into violent threats. This creating fear not just in parents, but the students as extra security was put in place on Friday.
"Because it's a situation that has happened in our community before," Gantt said.
The Townville Elementary School shooting in 2016 happening in the same school district as these threats, causes these parent and school administration to take no threat lightly.
But the written rules cannot be changed. Only now after a disruption was caused would students be asked to remove something with a confederate flag, but Avery said they have a plan to move forward.
"We are going to work on a way for students to give them an opportunity to give them a chance for their voices to be heard and ask questions surrounding this situation and understand the facts and more importantly they can be taught the skills to handle conflict," Avery said.
The district reports that the restrictions on the confederate flag at the school will only be until after they are past this situation. As for school safety, they do plan to have some extra officers on hand until these tensions are resolved.
Preservation of Southern history / heritage...consider joining Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Don’t let the liberal revisionist pervert and rewrite history.
Southern soldiers fought with valor and honor for the cause of the Confederacy.
Any controversy or racial division is not caused by the flag. It is because of the narrow-minded protesting students and their supporters.
“My son’s an African American student who’s never dealt with this and he’s not upset.”
Then what in the world is the problem?
South Carolina Ping
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Saw that. Attributed it to bad journalism.
Bunch of these folks need to grow up.
LOL!
What really gets me, revisionist attempting to alter/pervert historical facts. What chaps me even more...these wussies that swallow this indoctrination hook, line and sinker rather than study/research on their own to disprove or support a position. Parroting someone else’s lie and upholding it as your own truth.
Patriotic? Patriotic toward what? It would be fair to conclude that the friends of the deceased understood their fallen friend's love of the confederacy by how they dressed to honor him. The confederate flag represents the confederacy and rebellion against the United Stated. It is not a patriotic American symbol. It is a confederate symbol. The symbol of American patriotism is the U.S. flag.
They are trying to wipe out any vestige of Southern heritage because it’s easy. When we’ve been stomped on and ground underfoot they’ll start on someone else.
Correct. To add to it, the CSA doesn’t even exist any more. It’s been gone. Long gone. You can’t support or inherit something that’s not existent.
https://www.theblackloop.com/black-man-confederate-flag/
My son goes to a high school in SC. It is a diverse bunch. It is good to see there are still boys with testosterone that drive big trucks and have rebel flags. It isn’t about whites or blacks it has become a lifestyle of southern masculinity and patriotism. They hunt, fish, work in trucks, wear boots, listen to country music and maybe have a confederate flag. In the other side if he coin you have boys who only wear Vineyard Vines.
Yeah. And what about us British-Americans?
I know the family. They don’t need media attention right now.
I agree, although this observation clearly goes against conventional "wisdom".
I live in Western Washington - about as far from southern "good ol boys" as one can get. So it was especially amusing to read this "hate" article on one of the local news sites:
Swastikas, racist and homophobic Wi-Fi hotspot names pop up on phones during school assembly.
Now, I seriously doubt that any of these kids are sons of the south or are mindful of "heritage, not hate". I'm amused that they have discovered the iconography that disturbs the "establishment" and are (literally) waving it in their faces to mock and trigger them.
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” ― George Orwell, 1984
The Rifleman, “The Sheridan Story”.
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