Do the Swastika, the Confederate Flag, and the American Flag have something in common?

So this morning I woke up and turned on the TV while I was getting ready. What I heard, I found really disturbing. It seems that several students got sent home from a California school on Cinco De Mayo for wearing clothes that had American flags on them. The school in their infinite wisdom said that the patriotic clothing was inflammatory. Does anyone else see something wrong here?

First of all doesn’t the constitution say a little something about freedom of speech? I’ve read many things printed on clothing that to me are inflammatory but they are protected under free speech. More to my point, what country are we in? Let’s see……America. So now it would appear that they are saying patriotism is wrong if it is inflammatory. The only time I can think of this being the case in our county’s history was during the revolutionary war.

So my next question is since we are in America why do we celebrate Mexico’s independence? Do we celebrate any other country’s independence? The answer to this begs the question what makes Mexico so special?

What does all this have to do with the Stars and Bars, and the Swastika? First lets look at the Stars and Bars, too many it is a symbol of racism, to others it is about southern pride. In all actuality it was just the flag of the Confederate State of America during the Civil War (which was about state rights not slavery). Slavery might have been the “straw that broke the camels’ back” but the civil war was about something bigger. After the Civil War the KKK started using it and it started being seen as symbol of racism.

The Swastika is a symbol that’s origin goes back a long time and are somewhat unknown. The Swastika is just the German name for a symbol that is seen in many pre WWII cultures such as the Egyptian and Native American just to name a couple. However, after WWII its association with the Nazis made it a symbol of Anti-Semitism.

Both of these symbols now stand for something other than what they where originally intended. Is Old Glory now becoming an Anti-Mexican symbol? If so when did this happen?

Now to a slightly different but related topic. Why is there an African History Month? The better question is why is there only an African History Month? Where are the Irish, Native American, German, Spanish, Mexican, and French History Months? Having a History Month for only one of the ethnic groups/races we are discriminating. We should have all or none.

To wrap all this up and bring everything together, what makes this country great are the freedoms it offers. The freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear Arms, the freedom of press, the freedom of religion, The freedom to celebrate holidays not limited to but including Christmas, Hanukkah, and Cinco De Mayo. The freedoms listed above and more are what the American flag represent. So how is the American Flag inflammatory on Cinco De Mayo when with out the freedoms represented by Old Glory in America Cinco De Mayo would just be 5-5.