A 12-year-old boy was recently
kicked out of class-- at the Vanguard School in Colorado Springs, CO.-- because
his backpack had a sticker of the Gadsden Flag on it. The famous Revolutionary-era flag depicts a coiled snake on a
yellow background and closely mirrors Benjamin Franklin’s similar symbol of a
snake adorned with the slogan “Unite or Die.” (The Gadsden flag instead sports the
slogan “Don’t Tread on Me.”)
By way of a reason, the school cited the
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (USEEOC), which admitted the flag
“originated in the Revolutionary War in a non-racial context,” before adding
“However, whatever the historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has
since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages.”
Ironically, the only racially-tinged message the Gadsden Flag was possibly
intended to convey was one against the British monarchy and ruling elite, and
no one has ever been whiter than that!
But literally everything is now
(at least) sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages.
Everything is racist, period. Language, symbols, hand-gestures, highway design,
infectious diseases, the weather…etc., etc., ad infinitum.
The Vanguard School claimed that the Gadsden
Flag is a symbol of “slavery,” “White Supremacy,” and “hate.”
The truth is quite the opposite. The
Gadsden Flag is actually a symbol of love. Love of liberty. Love of
freedom. Love of unity. And love of representative government. Something
which, sadly, we seem to no longer have.
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