[quote=sdduuuude]The word “tolerance” is bandied about regularly these days.

Clearly those who are insulted by a USA t-shirt on any day have the lowest levels of tolerance imaginable and are just looking for a fight where none exists. To me, that is the real problem. The administrator gave-in to the wrong side here, for sure.

How about telling everyone that whoever starts a fight over a shirt is going to jail?

Perhaps they did wear the USA shirts to get under the others’ skin. Really? A red/white/blue shirt is going to get under their skin? Is it too much to ask that you just deal with the other guy’s shirt? Is it so hard? Imagine the stories they’ll tell their children about the persecution “Yeah. and this one guy wore a shirt with a flag on it. It was hell, man. Hell. So I threatened to beat him up.”

It’s just stupid.[/quote]

sdduuuude, your post appears to be a reaction to what I wrote earlier. Yes, I did suggest that the possibility that the “offenders” had worn the shirts to get under the skin of the school administrators, and perhaps even the other students. My point, that I thought I made clear, was that kids thrive on undermining school administrators, especially when they believe that retrictions placed upon them are idiotic in nature. The Cinco de Mayo dress code was a prime example of such idiocy, compounded by the administration’s reactions to the students’ revolt against the order.

The administrator(s) responsible for the “holiday” dress code may have believed that they were acting with the best of intentions. But they simply affixed another “victim” label to a select group. You’re correct: no one should be offended by an American (or any other) flag shirt. But, by creating and enforcing this dress code, the administrators set up the school’s Hispanic population as victims: the message to the Hispanic students was that THEY were being violated, not a school policy. It was an incredibly stupid and insensitive thing for the school to have done. If there are ongoing ethnic tensions at the school, or if they simply want to broaden cultural sensitivity among their students, there are far more effective solutions that are non-polarizing . When trying to ensure equal rights for all, you do not strip rights from some.

So, no, a shirt shouldn’t be an issue. Until someone in authority makes it an issue. And then it becomes THE issue. Yes. It’s just stupid.

But this is what’s been happening in America for years, and it’s been ratcheted up exponentially in the past couple, aided and abetted by a rabid press. People have anger control issues. Their response to just about everything is to adopt a loud, angry affect. It’s a widely-accepted fact that Americans watch a LOT of television. On any given evening, turn yours on and see how people deal with each other. With anger. With insults. With threats. I’m assuming, perhaps erroneously, that the example of dialogue at the end of your post was satirical, but have you watched any MTV lately? It’s a steady stream of “entertainment” where young men AND women communicate via texting and sex. On the rare occasions that they engage in verbal exchanges, it’s primarily a steady stream of invective punctuated by frequent threats to kick the other’s ass. And why not? We were raised on “Mr. Rogers” and “Sesame Street”, but these kids were brought up in front of “Jerry Springer” and “Cops”. Ridiculous as it sounds, your dialogue would fit right into the MTV lineup. People threatening serious bodily harm to others for minor, mostly imagined, slights.

My problem with what happened at Live Oak High, and what’s happening in this country, is that people are using “patriotism” as an excuse to both play the victim and to bully others. Our forefathers’ names are being attached to words they never uttered – statements of bigotry and ignorance – in an effort to lend legitimacy to the sentiments. Quite honestly, I don’t believe the Hispanic students were, in any way, traumatized by the events of May 5th. Likewise, I seriously doubt that the American students truly felt that their honor as Americans was at stake. Sit either group down, and grill them about the histories of their countries, the pivotal events, the sacrifices, and what it MEANS to be a citizen, and you might end up agreeing with me. But, thanks to the attention and headlines given the episode, we now have an excuse to become even more polarized.

I stick to my opinion that this dress code issue was a misguided boneheaded move by administrators that would have been best handled internally by the school district, and treated like the minor incident it was. Kind of like the way mature, responsible, and reasonable citizens should handle situations of this nature. As for the bandying of the word “tolerance”, please re-read the entire last sentence of my post for illumination on how the word “tolerance” was actually employed.