Brickbat: Ring It Up

When Sheboygan Falls High School basketball players Jordan, Jamal and Juwaun Jackson posed for a photograph for a newspaper profile, they probably didn't expect that it would lead to them being suspended and investigated by police. But that's what happened. Jordan posed making a sign commonly used by NBA players after making a three-point shot. But officials with the Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, school district had apparently never seen it, so they asked the police department to investigate, and the cops insist it's a gang sign, which led the school to suspend them.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

A Wisconsin school district said this week that it followed proper procedure when it suspended two African-American basketball players because they had made hand gestures that "looked like" gang signs.

Procedures were followed. What are all you people on about?

[Fist of Etiquette]

And Police Chief Steve Riffel said that he was "able to confirm that the sign was indeed a gang sign," but he acknowledged that the young men posed no threat to the community.

"Early intervention by authorities thwarted what appears to be a budding gang presence in Wisconsin. Law enforcement and school official observed at-risk minority youths in known gang colors flashing known gang signs. Fortunately our precogs are always on the job."

[Fist of Etiquette]

"It appears as if the Sheboygan Falls school district and police department are unprepared to respond to the increasing diversity in the schools in an appropriate and educationally sound manner," [ACLU] Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said.

Count it.

[db]

Blah blah blah. The appropriate response should have been, "It appears as if the Sheboygan Falls school district and police department are unacquainted with the basic principles of government laid out in the Constitution of the United States and should be removed from their positions of authority due to gross negligence and overreach of that authority." [ACLU] Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said.

All that crap about diversity is just a diversion from the core issue.

[mr simple]

And 1.

[wareagle]

this isn't about diversity; it's about an authority boner. I could give a shit if the kids flashed real gang signs AND actually belonged to one. What have they done? If nothing, then suspending them for a hang signal is the same as suspending them for saying a word that caused someone's thong to knot. Ridiculous either way.

[SugarFree]

Sign language is not considered free speech.

[Live Free or Diet]

My ASL friends at HLAA don't have First Amendment protection?

[SugarFree]

Is it speech? Is it sounds coming out of their mouth? No? OK, then.

And if you aren't stamping ink onto paper, it's not a "press" either.

And flintlocks are the only guns you can have.

If the Washington Joke hadn't fired Ezra Klein, he could finally make you understand this with his flowing and sober prose.

[Cdr Lytton]

Free speech advocate Ollie Holmes approves of this position, along with eight of his closest friends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.....on_of_Ohio

[Bones]

Freedom of speech and peaceable assembly are not permitted in schools. Damn libertarians always thinking the Constitution is in force throughout the entire jurisdiction of the United States and her territories and possessions like it says it is, what the fuck is wrong with you?

[RishJoMo]

Rock and Roll never forgets!

http://www.AnonWork.tk

[Doctor Whom]

"I don't understand it, so it must be a gang sign" is the new "I don't understand it, so it must be satanic."

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Put it this way...what if they waved a hammer and sickle flag and sang the Internationale? That would be free speech!

[Robert]

posing while black

[creech]

I hear flashing shiny badges is a new gang sign. Of a particularly nasty gang too.

[wheelock]

And if they were in fact gang signs, it's clear that the school made the best decision in turning them to the street during the day where they can get a real education.

[AustinRoth]

As Glenn Reynolds like to say, it is getting to the point that sending your kids to public school is child abuse.