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Several VSHS students displayed Confederate flags on Friday, as the controversy continued.
The controversy over the Confederate flag at Vinton High School has interrupted the students who were trying to analyze the data of the survey that started the discussion that morphed into the dispute that has resulted in some students missing class time.
“To think that my small class of five students studying the confederate flag would cause this much of a problem,” says VSHS student Skyler Vore.
Vore explains how the issue began.
“We were studying the confederate flag and the story this summer (the reaction and debate nationally after a white man who had photographed himself with a gun and a Confederate flag killed nine black members of a church in Charleston, S.C.) as a Contemporary Affairs issue, and we were curious to see how students and staff at Vinton felt about the confederate flag,” said Vore. “So we created a survey to send out. We hadn't really had a chance to analyze the data because this happened.”
On Thursday, two male students who had put Confederate flags on their pickups were asked to take them down. One did, the other refused and was sent home.
Then on Friday morning, nearly 20 students came to school either wearing clothing depicting the Confederate flag, or with the flag flying from their vehicles. Those students began the morning in the office, discussing the controversy with Principal Matt Kingsbury.
“We made an agreement with Mr. Kingsbury,” said one student. “He told us we could leave the American flags on our vehicles but had to take down the Confederate flags, or park off school property.”
That student also said the principal offered him an opportunity to share with others an article defending the Confederate flag.
Other students, however, said they left the school after being told to remove those flags.
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\"Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples\' physical and mental integrity, life and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as race,\" etc., etc. That\'s direct a quote, let me suggest that you look it up.
What people seem not understand, the Confederate Stars and Bars does represent all of the emotions, including hate of an ethnic group, the ancestors of which were held against their will, to be used as forced labor on their farms.
Like it or not those descendants are now citizens of the United States with the same rights under the Constitution as anyone else. You people quote the Constitution without reading it or understanding what it actually means to ALL citizens.
The Stars and Bars was never the official flag of the Confederacy. It actually became popular in the 1960s during the southern fight against integration of their schools and the fight against equal rights for all of us.
Think about that. It IS a symbol of hate of an ethnic group and the oppression of the same.
Sorry I blathered on so long, but I couldn\'t let this issue pass by without saying something.
Thank you all for your time and patience. All of are now off the hook...
According to the news article regarding the controversial display of a southern confederation battle flag, some students say they associate the flag with states rights. The secession of the states was a choice by each state to exercise their right to sovereignty as provided for in the Constitution of the United States of America. As my uncle Tom Kueny and others pointed out, the states involved chose to secede from our union for reasons of greed and profit at the expense of human enslavement. That is fact, not opinion, and that fact is clearly written in the declaration of secession from many of the states involved. In choosing to secede, those states also chose to remove themselves from the protections and rights afforded to their people under our constitution. During this time, there were three official flags of the southern confederacy. If this is a states right issue, as some students and community members have stated, why aren’t the official flags of the southern confederacy used to symbolize the rights those states exercised? I understand the issue initially arose after students were studying the confederate battle flag and the national controversies surrounding its use. Yet if the protesting students are using this symbol to represent states rights, I question why. Why not an official flag of the southern confederacy? Or is this nothing to do with states rights and it\'s actually just an ill informed freedom of speech issue at this point?
One thing we all agree on is that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. In fact, several people noted that our constitution gives them the right to express their opinion, and further suggests we keep in mind those that fight to ensure those rights and freedoms remain. Seriously people? Think about what you’re saying. I don’t speak for all veterans in our town, but I served to protect and defend the rights of citizens in the United States of America. As citizens and students within this community exercise those rights, I’d like to hear what the flag means to those that demand their right to display this symbol. That’s a vital piece of what’s missing in our discussions about this issue. For a student or community member to say it symbolizes freedom of speech and states rights, why this particular symbol? Do they understand their freedom of speech comes from their citizenship within the United States? Not the Southern Confederacy. Those of us that serve to protect those freedoms swear allegiance and make an oath to protect and defend freedoms for all citizens of the United States of America. Protests are an important right, and thoughtful protests have positively influenced our history in this nation. Within that right to protest is a responsibility to clearly define one’s position. A protest without a clear meaning or purpose is simply a disruptive group that\'s disrespectfully exercising an important right. I have yet to read a comment or hear from any of the involved students other than random statements that they have the right to freedom of speech. Using the right to freedom of speech provided for them as citizens of the United States to display a battle flag from states that chose to secede from that union is ill informed and sadly ironic. Yet still, I’m interested to hear why those students that feel the battle flag is an appropriate symbol of their protest. Then again, is their protest only to display a controversial symbol? What does this symbol mean for them, and what is it\'s importance to them? I’m also curious if they display their battle flag next to a bumper sticker to support our troops. Do they get that irony? As another community member noted, be informed and get behind something that matters. Use the rights others protect and defend for you in a responsible manner.
Monica Kueny
My opinion is that I find, after taking an oath “to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic,” and then spending six years overseas in the defense that same Constitution, that the student is not only misinformed but also quite ignorant of history.
Here is the very simple fact: Originally, what is known as the Georgia Battle Flag represented a few units in the military of southern states were in open rebellion against the United States of America. While it was never the official flag of Confederate states, the battle flag was flown by several Confederate Army units of the rebellion. The most notable among them was Gen. Robert E. Lee\'s Army of Northern Virginia.
I’ve heard it said that the rebellion of the southern states was actually “never about slavery.” But then several of those rebellious states wrote openly in their declaration of secession that they were seceding specifically because they wanted to keep the institution of slavery alive within their states. They felt and even had the audacity to write specifically in their declarations that the kidnapping of human beings from their homes on another continent to be forced into slavery in their home states was their God-given right.
After the Civil War, even Lee distanced himself from divisive symbols like the battle flag “occasionally” displayed in a war that his side lost.
\"I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war,\" he wrote in a letter, declining an invitation by the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association.
So, because I’ve actually studied the issue by reading the articles of secession written by those 13 southern states that openly rebelled against the Constitution of the United States, I do know exactly what the flag represents. The flag represents a people who openly advocated the kidnapping and enslavement at hard labor of other human beings for the purpose of enriching their own lives by making a profit.
Personally, I find the very concept repulsive and downright subversive in its nature.
Might I suggest the temporary expulsion of the offending students? Their ticket back to school being the agreement of attending an after-school class on this very issue, so they might understand the true meaning of what they are doing.
Tom Kueny, a graduate of Vinton Washington high school in 1964.
While our country does give us the right to say what we think and feel about important issues, that right is accompanied by a responsibility to be upstanding citizens concerned with the feelings and welfare of other citizens. Plastering the confederate flag -- a symbol of division and racism for many people -- all over their vehicles and parading around town was an ignorant and ill-considered move by our young people. It reflects poorly on our town and ultimately hurts us as a community.
Businesses googling Vinton when considering new locations will see these news reports and may decide to choose another town that appears more tolerant or better educated. Future employers googling these students\' names will see news reports of the incident and may decide to pass on hiring someone who showed such insensitivity. This show of teen-age rebellion has implications for all of us who live and work in Vinton. Unfortunately our reputation is now tainted. I urge the student body and the specific students responsible to go to the news media with a public apology for their damaging behavior. Then I urge the school to require extensive community service as discipline for the students involved -- they\'ve contaminated our town with hate, now they need to put in some serious hours of service to help repair that damage.