A full-page newspaper defends the punishment high school student Darryl George has faced over his hairstyle.
If being American required conformity, then why isn’t the principal conforming to state law?
Because we all know it’s not about conformity.
It’s about conforming to what I personally believe
Bam
He says it’s about the hair length and the crown act doesn’t cover length.
I wonder if he sees children arguing on the playground and is intimidated by their playground argument logic?
His hairstyle is “commonly or historically associated with race”, so it’s covered under the crown act. His hair was in a very common style with a long association with his race for centuries. The law doesn’t allow for discrimination for typical hairstyles, it doesn’t give any leeway to discriminate if the superintendent thinks it should be shorter.
Oh absolutely, thanks for the clarification. His logic just struck me as childish and I was tickled by a principal with childish logic.
I teach in TX, so this is more than just a headline to me. I’m so tired of having students that are scared to come to school because they might be bullied by teachers and administrators.
I thought being American was about freedom? Right? Isn’t that what these folks usually croon about?
I thought America was already past this in-your-face type of racism and was more into the less obvious types of racism.
Maybe I’m right and Texas is special. While the rest of the US is more subtle about it but still have it.
Not trying to shit specifically on America. Racism is a worldwide problem. I just thought America was beyond that type of super obvious discrimination.
If it was really common would you be reading about it?
Yes, racism is out there. Yes, it’s sometimes outrageous. Yes, there are more racists than there should be.
But most racism is subtle. It’s a higher loan rate. It’s not landing a job you’re overqualified for. It’s being watched closely at the store. It’s being treated like you’re older than you are when you’re a child.
I don’t have first hand experience to speak of in this area but I’ve seen it. It makes me sad. People are people. We’re all just trying to get by out here, I don’t know how you could look at the state of things and conclude that it’s poor people of any color making things shitty.
If they’re taking your benefits or jobs, who hands those out? Is it the poor immigrants or is it the ruling class? People are out here so brainwashed they’re blaming people who are being exploited BY THE SAME PEOPLE WHO ARE EXPLOITING THEM for their problems. Damn man it’s depressing.
It’s only even a political issue because that’s a great way to make people get mad at other people of their class.
Racism is a really great way to get the exploited to hate the “other” exploited rather than the exploiters.
Lee Atwater knew…
What a guy. His Wikipedia page is like an album of Republican shittiness greatest hits. Some snippets:
- Rollins described Atwater as “ruthless”, “Ollie North in civilian clothes”, and someone who “just had to drive in one more stake”.
Then this section has racism and fear of OTHER others! Plus personally attacking somebody’s medical history.
- Atwater’s tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by so-called independent pollsters, to inform white suburbanites that Turnipseed was a member of the NAACP.[8] He also sent out last-minute letters from Senator Thurmond telling voters that Turnipseed would disarm the United States, and turn it over to liberals and Communists.[9] At a press briefing, Atwater planted a fake reporter who rose and said, “We understand that Turnipseed has had psychiatric treatment”.
The censoring in this one is something I had to add myself.
- Atwater: Y’all don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, “Ner, ner, ner". By 1968, you can’t say "ner”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And the fucking cherry on the top. Things are going bad for me so now I realize that other people matter.
- In a June 28, 1990, letter to Tom Turnipseed, he stated, “It is very important to me that I let you know that out of everything that has happened in my career, one of the low points remains the so-called ‘jumper cable’ episode”, adding, “My illness has taught me something about the nature of humanity, love, brotherhood, and relationships that I never understood, and probably never would have. So, from that standpoint, there is some truth and good in everything.”
Four years of Trump did so much damage to our nation. We were already not doing great.
Yeah, the racists aren’t afraid anymore. For a while, people (mostly) weren’t in your face with the racism. Racism definitely still happened, but it usually wasn’t overt. It was the slow, quiet, insidious type of racism. The manager who takes over a department, and slowly makes all the black people quit one at a time. The HOA president that only cites houses owned by BIPOC. The police getting called because a black person went for a jog, and that’s somehow “suspicious”. The loan officer increasing interest rates for black families looking to buy a home. 12 year old kids being treated as adults by the legal system, and grown adults being talked down to like children.
It’s all still very damaging, but it’s hard for any one person to prove, so the racist is allowed to continue doing it. It’s the type of stuff that requires months or even years of paperwork in order to establish a pattern of behavior. The type of stuff that is so spread out that no single person has enough evidence to prove, even when they’ve all been harmed by it.
All of those covert forms of racism still happen, but it also includes all of the overt racism now. We have legislators who have incorporated racism directly into their campaign promises. We have nazis holding rallies and recruitment drives. America is not okay right now, and it’s going to take a lot more than one or two election cycles to fix things.
I feel like Malcolm X was right and it really would behoove us Americans of the melanated type to just go start our own country.
Maybe I’m right and Texas is special. While the rest of the US is more subtle about it but still have it.
this isn’t wrong; I’ve lived all over the US, but only in Texas did I see blatant outright racism time and time again explained as “well that’s just the way we are sweetie it’s not racist that’s just Texas”.
In short, Texas is crazy racist, even compared to the racism experienced throughout the US.
Remember that the reason Texas fought a war of independence was partially because of slavery. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, and among other grievances, the Guerrero Decree was a BIG reason why Texas seceded from Mexico - slavery made Texas a hell of a lot of cash, like it did for every other Southern state.
Valid point, most texans don’t even know it was a primary pain point that drove the Texans to secede from mexico, inciting the Alamo. They certainly didn’t teach me when I was growing up there.
Texas has a unique history. Before it was part of the USA, it was it’s own nation. And before that, it was a Mexican State. The first time Texas seceded, it was from Mexico, because Mexico had banned slavery, and Texas, being run by cattle barons before it was run by oil barons, did not like that. It became it’s own independent State known as the Republic of Texas. However, the Mexican military was quick to attempt to stifle the rebellion. Texas did not really have the ability to stand on its own as a country, but the USA made them an offer to help defend Texas in exchange for being annexed into the United States. The US had not yet banned slavery, so Texas was quick to agree and join the US. Then the Mexican-American War happened.
Oh wow, I didn’t know that. Amazing.
I think it was a Trevor Noah quote, but racism is the South is explicit and direct, and racism in the north is subtle and indirect.
Maybe I’m right and Texas is special. While the rest of the US is more subtle about it but still have it.
As a general example, Texas and California are almost like their own unique countries in many ways, and are very different from each other.
In California, especially Central and Southern California, so many different peoples and cultures live together next to each other, so those kind of concerns about looks/difference and “the other” doesn’t even come into play, day to day.
Texas (with the exception of the City of Austin perhaps), are very much focused on a specific religious mindset and culture, and “the other”/different are seen through a magnifying lens.
Not trying to shit specifically on America. Racism is a worldwide problem.
It’s actually a species problem, it’s so deeply hardwired into our lizard brains, the " ‘other’ is dangerous" mindset, but it takes a lot of higher thinking to override it, not something that everyone bothers or wants to do.
I just thought America was beyond that type of super obvious discrimination.
No, we’ve always just been two countries in one geographical location. It’s just these later years that the cultural norms, the unspoken rules, have all been broken, so the truth of things are coming to the surface.
Being an American requires conformity with the positive benefit of unity
Man, these people always out here saying the quiet part out loud these days.
“If you little fuckers would just CONFORM to how we want you to be, this country would be filled with UNITY.”
Yeah, because the only “unity” they want is forcing their conformity on everyone else.
Laaaand of the free …
♫ Proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m
freeconforming for unity. ♫… and home of the most prisoners in the wooooooooooorld.
I literally yelled the same thing out. lol
The crazy thing is that people still think they’re being quiet at all
Unity - the name of a parasitic hive mind that spews vomit down peoples throats to spread itself throughout entire species in the show Rick and Morty.
On brand.
Oof.
I’m increasingly convinced they think Gilead is portrayed as a reasonable goal.
Yes.
Ah yes, the land of the free
I still CANNOT believe he chose to phrase his justification like that.
One of the things we’re supposed to have is freedom to express ourselves however we see fit so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
My parents have a huge “Fuck Joe Biden” banner on the front of their house, and the county hasn’t stepped in to be like “You can’t have a two foot tall ‘Fuck’ on public display”, and yet this guy gets in trouble for wearing his hair in a manner that’s comfy to him???
I shouldn’t be shocked because I live in Texas, however, I am. Maybe I’m not cynical enough.
are your parents black?
No, I’m white as white can be. I know that’s the reason but I’m just flabbergasted that this kind of racism can still be so blatant in 2024.
Ugh. I really do try to be the “I love humanity” person, but this story in particular just disgusts the fuck outta me.
I wish the George family would open a gofundme for legal costs because I’d kick some dollars their way in a heartbeat.
I hear you.
I honestly used to say I loved humanity. Each year and each observation of us as a species as made me grow more cynical and pessimestic regarding if most people are are “good” or not. The inability of people to not become childlike and selfish was during the beginning of covid was the final piece of evidence for me.
I genuinely believe if they made a gofundme they’d widely be accused of grifting, cause, you know, projection.
Please don’t give up on optimism, love and hope though, glad to hear some people haven’t :)
I find it hard sometimes, but I do genuinely believe that if humans have a fundamental nature, it’s a good one. I think the problem is that the system we live under punishes vulnerability and incentivises zero-sum thinking.
I used to be a real shitty person because of this. I faced a lot of ambient bullying in school, so I trained myself to always have a cutting retort ready for if someone tried to hurt me. I was still a decent person outwardly, but inside, I was turning my heart and mind to toxic sludge. Eventually I realised how nasty my internal dialogue was and it shocked me enough that I committed to try and change, but I don’t think I could’ve made the progress I have since then without the kind of community where I can learn what emotional vulnerability looks like and how to see that as a virtue.
A lot of hateful people seem pretty scared underneath it all. It doesn’t justify their hate, but it does make me feel sympathy towards them. I wonder what kind of person they could be if they had an environment where they could properly grow as a person.
Yeah 100% of everything you’re saying makes sense.
You sound likea very thoughtful person. Most people are no where near as thoughtful as you are in my experience. Also humans evolved to have a zero sum mentality as we evolved in a resource-scarce world. Now that that is changing for a certain portion of the population, we’re in no way inclined to start thinking differently. Some folks are, but most aren’t.
You’re right about fear and hostility though for sure. Don’t stop being compassionate! You’ve lifted my spirits a bit for what its worth :)
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Notable that public school administration is one of the places where bros go to ruin lives.
Actually how do we do this?
If someone has Texas a&m credentials they can find the dissertation here: https://library.tamu.edu/search/theses
His name is Gregory Poole.
These are public record. If you know where they went, the name used at the time, and roughly the year of graduation, you should be able to Google it without too much difficulty.
Right so after we find out he plagiarized who do we mention it to?
The university most certainly has a place you can contact to raise concerns, a review organization of some sort. Googling the university name and “report plagiarism” would surely get you there.
Yes, because we know how much the right really, really, really cares about things like plagiarism, at least for certain people (see: Ward Churchill and Claudine Gay).
Let’s see how consistent they are!
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I looked through the article for a link to the ad, but couldn’t find it. It is also not linked in other publications. Here is a photo of the ad that I found on Twitter:
Could’ve just written “holier than thou” and saved himself some ad money. What a sanctimonious garbage person
Holy shit. And how can someone think that mask wearing is still being questioned? Fucking masks make the most sense in the world. Doctors have trusted them for…fuck, who knows how long? A long time. And the technology has only gotten better.
Incorrect mask wearing, sure, the claims of protection can be dubious depending on the mask, but to even bring this up right now is such an insane move. What a dick.
I’ve thought about this a lot. I think there are three main elements.
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People like this will judge the facts based on the conclusions they want, and they sure do prefer the conclusion where their selfishness wasn’t that bad.
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They’re extremely bad at understanding anything that isn’t black & white. So when you go into things like rates of effectiveness or levels of confidence, they shut down, and either say “it doesn’t work” or “nobody knows for sure.”
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One of the major benefits of masks is to prevent yourself from spreading infection, and they just plain don’t give a flying fuck about other people.
Also, the point that got to me was his defense of sending kids to school because covid wouldn’t affect them too badly. Firstly, some kids will be badly affected, and secondly… where the fuck does he think the kids go after school? They go home, where they’ve got parents, guardians, maybe even grandparents and other elderly family members.
What a dumb asshole.
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He’s doing that usual nonsense of “It doesN’t AffEct KidS lIkE It dOeS adultS” garbage, too, as if kids went to school in a fucking vacuum or something.
Jesus Chris you can’t make this shit up. Dude opens with pandemic bullshit in an editorial defending his grade school disciplinary policies?
Talk about rent free. We should mass mail this dude masks.
I HIGHLY recommend people actually click through and read the superintendent’s full ad, because it’s a gold mine of hypocrisy, idiocy, and not-so-subtle racism.
EDIT: To clarify, the article doesn’t actually present the superintendent’s screed. It embeds a tweet that has a photo of it. That said, it’s been posted elsewhere in this thread, which has the added upside of avoiding Twitter.
Pool alleged that the family’s lawyer said she wants to “bankrupt” the school district and its leaders during the legal proceedings.
Isn’t that a Republican’s job?
Being an american requires conformity
Says the guy with the confederate flag in his living room
Isn’t that literally the opposite of freedom. Also of our international reputation. We’re weird and unique and that’s good.
Conservative freedom is the freedom to do what they demand you to do, or face repercussions/punishment/violence.
Every day is Opposite Day for Texas Republicans.
It’s especially ironic coming from Texas. Texas has a strong state identity and individualism is a big part of it.
As lonh as being an “individual” means wearing a cowboy cosplay and carrying an emotional support firearm.
Don’t forget the big booty 6 wheel pickup to drive from your suburb to your office job downtown.
Downtown office jobs take skill. They’re driving from one suburb to another.
Amen to that. It’s also anathema to our origins. We’ve always been a country of freaks, rejects, and free spirits. Conformity is unamerican.
It’s the Southern notion of “freedom”. Meaning you get to rule over others.
I’m always amazed the lengths people will go to justify the needless destruction of someone’s life.
This motherfucker paid for a full page ad to scream fuck you I’m right??
Are you saying that someone is acting like a entitled, snow flake?
Certainly. The term snowflake originates from the civil war, snowflake meaning slavers.
So yeah, this racist typical American is a snowflake.
TIL I learned that snowflake means slavers. This further cements that it is nothing but projection with these shit heads.
I’d wager the superintendent also used district funds to pay for the ad.
Never even crossed my mind but I’ll bet anything you’re right.
I’d wager the superintendent also used district funds to pay for the ad.
Paid for by the Barbers Hill Educational Foundation.
the Education Foundation can provide grants directly to educators who have fresh, new ideas for programs that help students not only learn, but remember.
Programs that help students learn and remember to respect authority and conform. Otherwise, no education for you!
Good on you for doing the work that I didn’t.
Such a strange thing to make a stand against, especially from the punk scene haircuts I remember back in the 80s, 90s. This isn’t even super noticeable, comparatively.
Gee, wonder what the real issue is here…
It’s school administration. There’s no deeper reason. They’re just being dicks.
The Olympic-tier mental gymnastics touting conformity in fucking Texas of all places is truly astonishing. I mean, is it personal freedumbs and rugged, short-haired individuality or is it the Stepford state? Make up your gd minds
You have the personal freedumb to look just like I want you to look.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=tOS0x2Ef2cY [ Stuart - Dead Milkmen ]
Holy shit, Dead Milkmen. I haven’t thought of them for years, thanks for reminding me!
