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Confederate flags remain a sensitive button as red-hot as the banner's dominant color.
That's no surprise to a Ryan Delictao, a Macomb County senior sent home Thursday for defying a warning not to park in the Warren Mott High School lot with a full-size rebel banner waving from his pickup truck bed.
It's the 17-year-old's third violation of a policy barring disruptive materials, Supt. Robert Livernois tells Priya Mann of WDIV, who reports:
"They said I was harming other kid’s education and everything because it's a distraction," senior Ryan Delicato of Warren says. (WDIV screengrab)
On Wednesday, Delicato was warned he would be suspended if he did it again. . . .
The superintendent said numerous students complained about the flag and staged a protest. At one point, someone even cut down Delicato’s confederate flag.
The TV journalist speaks with the teen, his dad and a black parent:
- Suspended senior: “It’s for our southern heritage -- not for race nothing like that.”
- His father, Gary Delicato: "We can’t all stop doing things just because somebody doesn’t like something."
- Ben Gillory, whose son is at the school: "He might was well ride around with a white sheet. . . . It's like a slap in the face [to] kids who come to school."
The younger Delicato tells WDIV he'd rather graduate June 6 than get suspended, or worse, for a fourth act of defiance.
His flashpoint action stirs passions, not surprisingly, at WDIV's site (more than 110 comments in a day) and on social media.
A fellow student at the school, Easton Chaivre, posts under the station's report:
He has the right to fly the flag. However, he was asked multiple times to leave the flag at home. . . . While the flag is not a direct symbol of slavery, it is still associated with it.
I'm sure Ryan was not intentionally being racist. However,. . . many students of all different races and backgrounds took offense to this and decided to respond by taking it to the office
Other voices don't necessarily divide neatly along political, social and geographic lines. White former southerners are among critics.
Beow is a sampling, including more than a few posted anonymously (shocked, right?)
Critics:
►"I went to high school in Warren and knew several racist rednecks that sported Confederate flags, claiming southern heritage. They were born and raised in Metro Detroit. You're not "Southern," you're just white trash." -- Chris, Detroit, at Reddit
► "What trash. Good for whoever protested and tried to cut the flag down." --Kaitlin Fazio, Detroit, on Twitter
► "He's within his rights to fly it, of course. The school is also within their rights to send him home for it." -- PrimeSuspect, Reddit
► "That is the battle flag of the Northern Virginia Army and it was never recognized nor sanctioned by the (former) Confederate States. Anyone spouting "heritage" needs to learn what a REAL Confederate Flag actually looked like. There were a total of four versions over time." -- Adam Kochan , Sterling Heights, at WDIV
► "As someone who is actually from the South, it kind of pisses me off that these trashy redneck northerners try to co-opt my actual heritage under some bullshit racist banner. The South is a lot of things, and there is certainly a loooong and tumultuous history of racial tensions that still exist in a lot of places today. But there's a ton more to being 'southern' than these shitfuck imposters seem to think there is. We're not all backwards hillbillies who fly the battle flag and refer to the 'war of northern aggression' or something. . . .
"My family has been in the south for well over 100 years. . . . I'm proud of where I'm from and I hate seeing it co-opted and twisted into this ugly thing full of hatred, especially by people that have no idea of what life and people are really like down there." -- B.B., Reddit (from three posts)
► "This student wanted to prove to others that he has a constitutional right to believe in segregation, racism, white supremacy and Lynyrd Skynyrd? Basically, these are tenets and beliefs associated with a confederate flag. Kudos to the principal for setting the standard for denying a symbol that promotes anger and tension in a school. . . . Cross-burning reminders should have no place at any school, ever." -- Christopher Swanson, teacher, at WDIV
► "The school has a point. It's a distraction to education (source of controversy) and they have the ability to say it's not welcome. This isn't his first time either. He's pushing their buttons out of idiocy." -- G.W., Reddit
► "Southern heritage -- yeah, right! I doubt the kid has even opened a history book. And before everyone gives their two cents in, I am a history professor in and I am by no means liberal." -- M. Dujon Johnson, North Greenville University, at WDIV
► "While I do not agree with this kid bringing the flag in, seems to me this kid is likely teaching more about American history than the teachers are." -- Mark Muzik at WDIV
► "That flag has no business this far north of the Mason-Dixon." -- Anonymous, Reddit
► "I've lived in Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and here. What amazes me is I actually see more Confederate flags in PA and Michigan than I ever saw in Texas or Kentucky. Really weird." -- Jack, Reddit
► "Every other truck south of Columbus in OH has on one it." -- Anonymous, Reddit
► "In Michigan it's typically teenagers trying to be edgy, or just white-trash being white-trash. Still embarrassing to be in the same state as those people though." -- T.B. at WDIV Reddit
Defenders:
"No enough people stand up to the liberal ideology." -- Shelly Roman
► "Whether or not you agree with the flag or not, he's still within his right to fly it. . . . People need to realize that being offended isn't the same thing as being victimized." -- GPforLife, Reddit (from two posts)
► "That flag has less blood on it than the Stars and Stripes. I'd rather see it fly over the Stars and Stripes. The Stars and Stripes flew over mass genocide . . . of Native Americans. . . .It could stand also as a flag of invasion [of the Siouth] for the purpose of conquest. . . . The Stars and Stripes also flew over slave ships. That's something the Southern Cross did not fly over. . . . Many people are willfully ignorant over Confederate symbols." -- Will Rush at WDIV
► "Being a racist idiot is protected by the First Amendment. Given that he was flying it only in the parking lot on his truck, I can't imagine the school's logic passing judicial scrutiny as a reasonable restriction on his rights." -- R.E., Reddit
► "How can you respect the First Amendment while simultaneously punishing someone for exercising it?" -- Ryan Serrato at WDIV
► "This flag had nothing to do with slavery it had to do with the South breaking away from the north over taxes. And it was not this flag that flew over the ships that brought the slaves here, it was the American flag." -- Rhonda Roller, Warren, at WDIV
► "He is not a sheep! Not enough people stand up to the liberal Ideology that everyone has to stop living that it may offend someone!" -- Shelly Roman at WDIV
► "Kids are bringing guns to school and we're concerned over this kid bringing a flag to school. Are you kidding me!" -- Sheri Palmer at WDIV
