The Minnesota Three
Three Minnesota teens learned a big life lesson on graduation day. They weren’t allowed to march with their classmates after sticking a huge Confederate flag in everyone’s face in the school parking lot.
Seniors Dan Fredlin and Justin Thompson, both 18, and Joey Snyder, 17, were suspended and restricted from the diploma ceremony after arriving at John F. Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn., Tuesday with the flags affixed to their cars. One of the teens had a flag hoisted on a 20-foot flagpole attached to his truck…
The school’s principal, Ron Simmons, who is black, made the decision to suspend the trio and ban them from the commencement, a decision school district officials affirmed.
“What is not acceptable is driving through the parking lot and waving the Confederate flag for the purpose of inciting a response,” Rick Kaufman, a spokesman for the Bloomington Public School district, told ABC News.
Kaufman cited a pair of state laws to justify the discipline decision, including the students’ willful disruption of the rights of others to an education and their endangerment of students and school property.
At the same time, as Jon reported, plans were unveiled for a huge Confederate flag to be flown by the Sons of Confederate Veterans along the I-4 corridor near Tampa.
The modern-day symbolism of the Confederate flag is a hard concept to express. Jon ended his post, “Time to find a new logo for pride in the South” but the Minnesota teens were hardly demonstrating that. They say that see something non-regional — and much sexier.
Kellie Rezac, a friend of the three suspended seniors, helped organize the unsuccessful protest….
Both Thompson and Rezac acknowledged the opinion of some that the flag is a symbol of hate, but said that there is a group of students in the class who celebrate the Confederate flag as a symbol of some stereotypically Southern lifestyles. “It’s country music, we have a lot of fun, we go mudding,” she said, describing “mudding” as pushing 4x4s off-road.
In popular culture, the Confederate flag has been celebrated — as a hood ornamentation on the General Lee in the television show “The Dukes of Hazzard” for example — but also used to depict racism and racist characters.
“The whole racism thing is a bandwagon idea that everyone jumped on that has very loose wheels,” she said.
Actually honey, to say that flag represents anything but racism — and white privilege borne on the back of the most exploitive, illegitimate, and dishonorable system conceived since the dark ages — is to just skim the surface. The Dukes of Hazzard was a Hollywood image of a South that exists in the minds of people who don’t live here. It’s unfortunate this “makes a better story” version struck a cord with young people like these three in Minnesota.
A festering racism is oozing out of the cracks in our country, just as Barack Obama is emerging as a symbol of a new way, an America 2.0. It’s not surprising that these concealed and unaddressed resentments would work their way to the surface now. The big question is, do we do what we have always done, and bemoan (us) ignorant racist Southerners, or do we face our national shame, our nationwide failing? Only one of these paths leads to the way we all wish these Midwestern three teens had chosen.
While the racial issues raised by this symbol are indeed bothersome, there is a broader concern as well. This flag also represents one of the largest en masse act of sedition ever perpetrated on the United States of America, to this very day. It is not merely an issue of racism. It is an issue of celebrating sedition in the public square. When these dunces brought it to school, they brought it to the commons, and this symbol has no place there. Celebrate sedition and slavery in your own realm, if you must. But in state capitals and schoolyards, we get to ban such crap because it is wholly inappropriate. As Trish notes, it is so unfortunate that this symbol seems to be seeing a popular resurgence at the moment we’ve nominated Barack Obama.
The ones who win war and political conflicts get to write the history and therefore believe they change the face of history, society and the thinking of the masses. And so the Confederate flag can be resigned to the trash heap of history, being assigned racist connotation. More political correctness at work.
The war was a states rights issue, not a slavery issue. The Stars and Stripes flew over slave owner homes longer than the Confederate flag. We still have 1st Amendment don’t we?
having on your truck in a parking lot IS NOT wearing it in place of a cap and gown SHAME ON the reporter or editor who chose that headline. many people(some of whom I know) wear jackets with the confederate battle flag on them— that DOES NOT make them hate any group of people
Yes, it does, Davis. The Confederate battle flag is a racist symbol. Period.
I was using the word “draped” metaphorically, Davis. That’s a tough concept to grasp but not nearly as hard as trying to turn a symbol of oppression and hate into good, clean, white people fun.
Cruising the flag though a crowded public parking lot during a school function is either an attempt to incite a riot, a political demonstration or a display of juvenile unsupervised ignorance which questions the intelligence or maturity of this “graduate” into the adult world . . . any moron that attempts to make this out a “harmless” prank and ignore the negative historic framework needs to stop the homeschooling from old magazines . . .
Not only is the Confederate flag racist, it’s treasonous. It was the created symbol of people who first tried to cheat, then betrayed, and finally out and out attacked their fellow americans.
People always compare it to a nazi flag, but to a real American it’s kind of worse. At least the Nazis were foreign. These people were American.
The south lost. And deservedly so. Some people need to get over it.
it is simply HERITAGE not hate !!!!!!!!!!!!
dont you see the STARS&BARS alot in Texas? mr.nugent.
u guys just need to get over all this nagging about the confederate flag, i fly that flag on my truck everywere i go, the only people that take action to my pride are the ones with balls but usually end up losing the argument! let it be, mexicans and blacks all fly their flags with pride! let us fly ours! anyone whos truely american and understands their past history will understand this message!
they should not of gotten a punish ment 4 one thing they didbt say crap about obama n another look up what the flag really means if anything that princepel is being racist if it was a blck kid with a black panther flag im sure he wouldnt have cared the flag has nothing to do with racisim at all it was fought in a war not to beat slaves with i hate people like that
i fly that flAG ON MY TRUCK MY BELT MT HAT N HOODIE SAY SOMETHIN TO ME THEN
These three boys distributed freedom of speech. Just because someone has a confederate flag doesnt necessarily mean rascism. The confederate flag was a war flag, people nowadays associate it with rascism because they have nothing better to do. Yes, I do believe the boys took the matter a little overboard with shoving it in peoples faces, but as far as the 20ft. flag goes thats their right as citizens. They should not have been restricted from walking at graduation. Maybe, some form of punishment but the schl board took it a little to far.