Ban the American Flag In Schools? I Don’t Think So

It’s been a long time since something made me fiercely angry. I’ve always been pretty laid back, and at my age I’ve become pretty non – confrontational outside the occasional frustration I feel with social injustice and when my internet goes down. The doctor gets me upset when he wants to do that thing he does during my checkups, and if it was anyone else there would be immense trouble, but, hey, it’s supposedly for my own good.

We all get those emails that seem so real, yet when really checked out, we find they are complete bunk mixed with just enough truth to make them seem truthful. Mostly, they are about politics and someone wanting to run down the president, or some congressman, or it has to do with bizarre creature dropped off from a UFO. You’ve seen them, and you know what I’m talking about.

This week I thought I had gotten an email from that bizarre UFO creature when one arrived in my inbox that was titled “Vote NO on FOX to banning the flag in America!” I thought it was a bad joke…a really bad joke. I was about to email back the friend who had sent it to me and really give him the what for, when I decided to go to the link in the email, http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/05/06/american-flag-banned-america/. No folks this was real. I was shocked, and immediately furious. Why is this even a question?

The questions themselves almost seemed rigged. The questions were:

Should the American Flag be Banned — in America?

No. This is a lame decision. Teach the kids what the flag means, instead of banning it.
Yes. The safety of students comes first.
Not sure, but of all things to ban, the American flag would seem the least ‘incendiary.’
Other (post a comment)

So What Incited Such a Bizarre Poll

Some of you may have already heard about this, but apparently it has been kept pretty quiet other than on the internet. I don’t normally go to Fox’s webpage so I hadn’t heard about it until my friend sent me the link. I immediately started researching what happened.

On Cinco de Mayo, May 5^th, in a town just outside San Jose called Morgan Hill, at the Live Oak High School, five students were sent home for wearing our country’s flag in the form of tee shirts and bandanas. The Live Oak High School administrative officials felt the American flags these students wore were “incendiary”. Odd, they should use that term.

That Wednesday morning these five teens, Daniel Galli, Austin Carvalho, Matt Dariano, Dominic Maciel and Clayton Howard, were sitting at a table outside the school when Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez approached them and directed two of them to remove the patriotic flag bandanas. They were stunned but complied with the removal request but then all were asked to accompany Rodriguez to the office, where he demanded they turn their flag tee shirts inside out.

In and of itself the rest seems bizarre but his reasoning, at least to me, seems nothing short of, and using his term, incendiary. He felt their shirts and bandanas would start fights since the Mexican – American students were celebrating their heritage.

I am of Irish descent and am one of the first to celebrate St. Paddy’s day. I love the holiday, but in the furthest reaches of my mind, I can’t possible imagine starting a fight if someone wore an American flag tee shirt on St. Paddy’s day. Although I am of Irish descent, first and foremost I am an American, period.

Some of you might say, Lee, that’s their independence day, and I will tell you, no, it’s not. It is the celebration of the Battle of Puebla, where the French were defeated when France’s navy, along with England and Spain, came to collect a debt in the form of cash and land.

Mexico, much like the U.S. suffered through a dramatic civil war that stretched from 1858 to 1861that drained the country both as a people and financially. As the old saying goes, there’s nothing civil about war. In an effort to revive the country, Mexico borrowed money from the three countries, in fact a great deal of money for the time. When Mexico stopped making any payments, they decided to take Mexico by force and install Napoleon III’s relative, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria as the ruler of Mexico. This took place fifty years after Mexico had declared independence from Spain, which was 1821.

That particular May 5^th, of 1862, as the French marched from the gulf coast, the strong Mexican army of the area of Puebla stood much taller than the 4500 men of which it was constituted. The onslaught of 6500 French warriors, far better outfitted, and better trained was stopped in its tracks and this action by those brave fighters literally saved the country. This couldn’t have come at a better time. General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin became, and still is a national hero because of the victory against overwhelming odds.

The sound defeat of the French developed a much needed, and much deserved national pride, but Napoleon III wouldn’t leave it alone and sent a huge army to make sure ol’ Max would take over as supreme guy. News and troops traveled slowly in those days, but a determined Napoleon III, maybe trying to emulate his grandfather, sent 30,000 troops and did make Maximilian’s rule materialize.

This is where this story about celebrating Cinco de Mayo on American soil interesting to me, and somewhat ironic as pertaining to this issue. During Mexico’s civil war we were fighting our own civil war. Simply stated we couldn’t help Mexico, although President Lincoln wanted to at the time. Once our own battle was settled however, America began to support Mexico stringently, both monetarily and politically, and in large part through that assistance Max was deposed and executed in 1867. The Mexican state was returned and the French went home.

Also ironically, the holiday is mostly localized to Puebla, and north of the border in the U.S. Nationally it is becoming one of the biggest celebratory parties in the states, while moderately celebrated on Mexican soil. I know I certainly have enjoyed it over the years, along with many of my friends.

Having written this bit of history for you, I feel sure I will be labeled in some minds as a bigot, but I assure you, it is from patriotism these words flow from me. I can also assure you I am proud to be an American because of the openness of our society to all, no matter, race, color, or creed. This country has been blessed because of the many people from all over the world that have immigrated here. Although the common saying is we are the melting pot of the world I use the phrase melded because we are solid and strong as an amalgam, with a glorious history because of the many peoples that have become Americans. Emphasis on America.

This does not however justify illegal immigration, and I am certainly making a blanket statement against racial bias. I believe in neither. Again, I do believe in America and the principals this country was founded on, and the same principals that have made this country the great country it is, these types of incidents notwithstanding.

Having said that, I see several things taking place in this country I flat out don’t like. The largest of my dislikes is political catering and pandering for votes. As a nation we have allowed our good nature and desire to do right by everyone, and I mean everyone, to weaken the glue that holds our patriotism, foremost judicial foundation, and societal beliefs to become thin as rain vapor on a summer street. We are, through our common belief of fairness becoming unfair. No longer is the majority ruling, but the politicians are working for votes only, and the metal that has always been best for our country is now getting eaten by political weathering.

Humanity from all over the world has flocked to this country for three hundred years believing in the new frontier, and then bolstered by the document that is our constitution, there would be freedom and fairness that would withstand the storm of growth. We have indeed come a long way from the unconscionable days of slavery to a time of where every man, woman, and child, indeed every citizen, and potential citizen can have a foundation of self worth, and a belief in their future as they want to make it. While bias does of course still exist in some areas, and we still have a ways to travel, it is regularly being trod under the foot of freedom. Sadly, however, it is coming at a grave, unexpected cost to other areas of this country’s spirit, the same spirit that built this country.

Something else unconscionable is occurring. With every act such as this poll, scientific or not, with every improper demand from every illegal alien, no matter where they are from, to every time a citizen loses a job to goods made cheaper by someone in another country, we are killing ourselves from the inside. I don’t mind being a part of the world family as long as the family that is my country doesn’t suffer. It’s just that simple.

I know, I know, I know, I am treading on thin ice. I’m not being politically correct, but you know what, I feel like climbing on the back of the elephant in the room and riding him through the door into public. You see, I’m not looking for votes. I am looking for honor in our American society. I am looking for people who look inside themselves and ask what is best for this country, and they try to do something about it. I am looking for people who still remember John Kennedy stating, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

For some, that has become a cliché uttered in a different time by just another politician. It doesn’t matter who the man was who asked that question to our population, it’s about the question. It’s about you. Each of you. It’s about each citizen, each person wanting to become a citizen, and each and every person that believes in what this country has, and hopefully will continue to stand for.

It would be easy for some of you to ignore this question as the ramblings of some right wing bigot. You could just write it all off. For others you could turn to, or continue with the selfishness that comes from “me tunnel vision”, and look only to what you want, and believe you need from this country and its populace.

For a whole separate entity, I say thank you. I say thank you for what you are already doing, having turned inward and are giving of yourselves, some until it hurts. You do it because you love these people, believe in giving, and truly honor those that have gone before you in the same vein.

So by now the question has possibly arisen in your mind of how does any of this giving, and looking inward stuff have anything to do with some kids being made to take their flag tee shirts off. I’m glad you asked.

As you drive down the street, as you pass a school or a public building, or even notice that little flag pin on someone’s collar you’re not looking at a piece of cloth, or a painting, or even a small piece of metal. You’re looking at all those that have given to this country. You are looking not just at those who bravely gave their lives to allow for all these freedoms falling under foot, you’re looking at the representation of those serving in soup kitchens, you’re seeing people that grind at low paying jobs because they believe what they’re doing makes a difference, you’re seeing people…our citizens, born here or otherwise…our people from all over the world that have come to these shores to fulfill their dreams and are thankful to have the opportunity to live in this great and wonderful land.

Part of that poll asked, in an almost perverse manner about our children coming first, as if to skew the results. Who in their right mind would say no? That question goes well beyond the immediacy of a fight at school.

It goes to teaching those same kids the importance of their patriotism, and their contribution to society. It goes to showing each of them to respect the country they live in, and respect the flag of that same country. It goes deeply to respecting each of those people that are the makeup of the flag. It goes to honor, morals, self worth, dreams for each of them, and a future for this country. It goes to being a citizen.

For that group that finds my literary ambrosia not sweet at all, and are thinking of me as some type of idealist living in my own little pollyannic world where utopia is only a hallucination of passion away, let me ask you a question. Did it occur to you that in Mr. Rodriguez’s zeal to bring safe conduct to each of the school’s students, did he not show his own stereotyping? He just naturally presumed the Mexican populace celebrating Cinco de Mayo would be violent, did he not?

You may be angry with me for even bringing this subject up, but your righteous indignation should be resting squarely on the shoulders of the assistant principal who’s own bias just reinforced all the beliefs of those with social incompetence everything they wanted to hear. Instead of dealing with inappropriate illegal behavior as society demands, IF it occurred, he took a badly chosen and misguided path believing it was a very real possibility. He basically punished patriotism for something that had not happened, probably wouldn’t happen, and slapped the face of every person of Mexican heritage on that campus. If he had reason for his actions, why weren’t those reasons made clear?

There is always the two sides and the truth to every dilemma, but this time, I think things are pretty clear. This incident should not have taken place, and Fox News was way off base. Yeah, I’m angry, but not at Mr. Rodriguez, or Fox, since their actions were just idiocy, but with many of the citizens that have done nothing to head this type of thing off. We have had decades to stop this erosion of values.

This should have never been a question. Even in the age of sensationalism in journalism, this question should have been perceived as something totally incomprehensible…so incomprehensible the network would have believed it to be off limits because it should be off limits. NO one should slap the face of our heroes, whether they are everyday heroes or battle worn soldiers, or even those that simply love this country and are thankful to be here.

It’s time we make our thoughts known. It’s time we make it clear we want to keep this country great. It’s time we show those in charge we believe in our populace and this country.

Well, I hope I haven’t caused you to be angry with me, but I do hope you are angry. First though, be introspective. Think of what you can do to help make this country better.

While you’re thinking about all this, I have another elephant to saddle up.