Back in February there was UNC student petition to ban the confederate flag in Orange County NC. This is a county that has UNC-Chapel Hill, but also is surrounded by North Carolina Flaggers and can be just as, um, Republican. So the school board rejected the ban
“That really outraged a lot of people in the community because they understand that it’s a hate symbol,” Warner said. “From my understanding, there have been more students — now that they know this is a hate symbol and it aggravates other minority students — you see them wearing it more, putting it on the back of their trucks, wearing it on their t-shirts. There were even a couple of students who were sitting down in the lunch room and got in a circle and started pulling out confederate flags and when they got taken away they started pulling out more.”
The North Carolina Flaggers, a group which has been declared a Neo-Confederate Hate Group, were a part of the protest to make sure students keep wearing Confederate gear. They were crowing about this on their social media how they were taking back Orange County from whoever didn’t agree with them.
What a difference a few months make.
Back in June they revisited the issue. The UNC student was not the only one who had been working on the board. But in June they were not naming names.
More than six months after the parent of an Orange High School student founded the Hate Free Schools Coalition in response to Confederate flags on T-shirts, backpacks, and hats on campus, the Orange County Board of Education voted Monday evening to ban racially intimidating symbols from inside local schools.
While the policy change won't be official until a second vote is held, should the board move forward with the revision to the system's dress code, students would be prohibited from wearing "clothing, buttons, patches, jewelry or any other items with words, phrases, symbols, pictures or signs that are indecent, profane, or racially intimidating." That’s a victory for those who say the heritage being celebrated by Orange students who wear the flag is a "heritage of hate."
Last night was the second vote.
Just last month, a proposed policy prohibited students from wearing clothes that are disruptive, or could reasonably intimidate other students, but stopped short of explicitly mentioning the Confederate flag.
In Monday night’s meeting, specific language about the Confederate flag, KKK and swastikas was added to the previous policy as examples of what would not be allowed.
They may have gone to Charlottesville to “Unite the Right” but I think they united everyone else. I suspect the President not naming names is part of what is making others know they need to be specific.
Then language of the dress code rule
Clothing and accessories are not to substantially disrupt the education process. Students are not to wear clothing, buttons, patches, jewelry, make-up, face/body paint or any other items with words phrases, symbols, pictures or signs that are indecent, profane, or substantially disruptive, including items that are reasonably expected to intimidate other students on the basis of race (for example KKK, swastika, and the Confederate Flag), color, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age or religious affiliation.
Let us all hope the first day of school in Orange County is peaceful. I don’t think the bigots are going to go away quietly.
I’ll keep an eye out to see how the local group responds on facebook. Last night they were still going on about killing commies who take down their statues and that they need to pull down MLK ones in revenge.