This story is one of the saddest statements of the reality in our public schools. Jake Balthazor, 15, of Coon Rapids, Minnesota was told to take off a rosary that he wore as a sign of support of his cancer-ridden grandmother. The reason? No, not the separation of church and state. It is because a gang uses the rosary as a gang symbol and teachers did not want any trouble.
In defense of the teachers, they may have been trying to protect Balthazor from being attacked by either that gang or a rival gang.
Mary Olson, director of communication for the Anoka-Hennepin School District stated that students are barred from wearing “apparel, jewelry, accessories or matter of grooming which by virtue of its color arrangement, trademark or any other [that] attribute denotes membership in an organized gang.”
Two gangs, the Latin Kings and the Surenos, use rosary beads as affiliation symbols.
Olson said. “He was told not to wear it because it’s a gang symbol. He may not think of it as a gang symbol, but other students at the school may.”
The school says that it was unaware of the reason for his wearing the rosary and is trying to work something out with him. Previously, the school said he could carry the rosary in his pocket. School officials have a tough job in dealing with such gang symbols. However, the bar of a religious symbol creates different problems. Even putting aside the personal significance of this particular rosary, I do not see how a gang can effectively stop other students from wearing symbols of their religion. What do you think?
Source: NY Daily News
raff
the roman catholic gang, or “NAMBLA”
Too bad you PhD.’s don’t get to keep playing games. Kathy Bates doesn’t get to play games on the radio. And she doesn’t get to break James Caan’s legs with a sledgehammer (well, don’t tell her that). Figure that out. And what happened with his manuscript, anyway? He only had one copy. It will only hurt once. Oh wait, it might hurt twice.
I wonder how many people who learned the contrast between extensional meaning (denotation) and intensional meaning (connotation) remain among the living.
Perhaps “fruit fly” may denote a member of the species drosophila menanogaster (the so-called common fruit fly of college genetics laboratory class fame) or may denote a rotten tomato thrown at a disliked public speaker.
A symbol (intensional meaning) cannot be its referent object (extensional meaning) as in that fruit fly illustration.
I just imagined ruthless street gang that uses the wearing of clothing of any sort as its gang symbol.
And, after a few moments, I also imagined a ruthless street gang that uses total ;public nudity as its gang symbol.
And, now, I have imagined a ruthless street gang that uses being alive as its gang symbol.
Oops, I just imagined a ruthless street gang that uses being dead as its gang symbol.
Egad! That last one, I did not imagine. As I have read newspapers, more than one ruthless street gang has used drive-by shootings (murders) as gang symbols.
What transforms a human zygote into a gang symbol in the form of a drive-by-murdered dead person?
I thought the rosary was a gang symbol of the Roman Catholic Gang!
they have a gang problem in coon rapids minnesota?
He should carry the rosary in his pocket.
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BarkinDog,
Bigots who wear and bear the Confederate Flag will often tell you that they are not bigots but that this is their “Heritage”. Their Heritage stops at the Civil War however. If you ask what great great granpa did in the Revolutionary War their refuse to tell you that he was a Tory. Or if you ask them how the family got to Georgia back in colonial times they forget that great great great granpa was a convict sent to the penal colony for murder. So, if a gang has adopted a Rosary as a gang symbol, God love them–or dog love em. A peace symbol would be good too.
This kid has a right of free expression which is double damn you defendant school district when the object of the free expression is religion and triple damn you defendant school district when he is petitioning his government for redress of grievances by wearing his Rosary. So, when this gets to court make sure that his mom, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles of the sick lady of the Baptist or whatever faith are in court with their rosaries proudly displayed.
For the gangs, they ought to adopt rival school mascot symbols and one gang ought to adopt the mascot of this particular school or the high school in the district. One gang needs to adopt the Cross with Jesus hanging off of it.
I would like to see them ban that one. Maybe a Cross depicting the Superintendent of Schools hanging off the Cross. Get creative here kids, you are only in high school once.
Will someone please post my comment here at the school in question. Inquiring minds want to know.
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Discretion is the better part of valor.
So we allow gangs to dictate what we can wear now?
barkindog- I would have used the American flag as a backdrop to the school motto in letter styles used by taggers.
How real is the gang threat? If it was in the school, the administration did the right thing in allowing him to carry the rosary out of sight. If the gang threat wasn’t in the school, the kid should have been made aware of it and otherwise left alone.
When I was in school, don’t remember if jr. high or high school, my father heard something about the “red shirt gang”. He put me through an interrogation (former marine tough guy he was) to find out what I knew about this gang. The only time I ever heard of it was from him.
guilhem
Thats all sounds reasonable but then that may because you are reasonable. Gangs are not. In North Mpls it is not smart to wear red, blue or yellow as there have been kids beaten or shot for that crime while they have no affiliation themselves. Sometimes by rivals thinking the kid might be invading their turf sometimes by the gang itself because the kid was not allowed to wear the color.
A few years back a deaf man was shot to death on an MTC bus in Minneapolis – the gang mistook his sign language communications as gang signs so they shot him.
Barkindog I fear if you were a student in that school you would be found in a heap by a trash dump, having been geaten by the gang whose symbol you appropriated.
The young man is not being prohibited from having it with him, it only makes sense, in that sad, sad environment, that he not wear it visibly.
How about he wears it inside his shirt? Certainly a God powerful enough to give his grandmother cancer will be powerful enough to see beneath his clothes and into his heart.
A gang symbol which a gang could create would be a racoon swimming up a waterfall–to symbolize the town of Coon Rapids,MN. The gang could call itself the Coons. Just a thought here kids. I wish I was in that high school. I would drive them nuts.
I strongly believe that the Crips and The Bloods (black gangs) should adopt tthe Confederate Flag as their symbol. They could put the Confederate symbol in the upper left corner like southern states do and then have Crips or Bloods in the main body of the flag. Bigots who wear and bear the Confederate Flag will often tell you that they are not bigots but that this is their “Heritage”. Their Heritage stops at the Civil War however. If you ask what great great granpa did in the Revolutionary War their refuse to tell you that he was a Tory. Or if you ask them how the family got to Georgia back in colonial times they forget that great great great granpa was a convict sent to the penal colony for murder. So, if a gang has adopted a Rosary as a gang symbol, God love them–or dog love em. A peace symbol would be good too.
This kid has a right of free expression which is double damn you defendant school district when the object of the free expression is religion and triple damn you defendant school district when he is petitioning his government for redress of grievances by wearing his Rosary. So, when this gets to court make sure that his mom, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles of the sick lady of the Baptist or whatever faith are in court with their rosaries proudly displayed.
For the gangs, they ought to adopt rival school mascot symbols and one gang ought to adopt the mascot of this particular school or the high school in the district. One gang needs to adopt the Cross with Jesus hanging off of it.
I would like to see them ban that one. Maybe a Cross depicting the Superintendent of Schools hanging off the Cross. Get creative here kids, you are only in high school once.
Will someone please post my comment here at the school in question. Inquiring minds want to know.
And if he wore pink? Oh yeah…..
As a sort of parallel…
Consider a garment widely used during purely religious parades during Holy Week in Spain, amongst other religious uses.
The wearing of such religious robes might well be misinterpreted were someone to wear them in some neighbourhoods. It might not be wise to dress like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capirote
I assume from the story that gang members are also forbidden from wearing that particular and any other gang insignia when inside the school.
If the wearing of the rosary indicates gang membership, then the boy would be well advised not to wear one.
Inside the school, it would seen as remarkable.
Outside the school, it might trigger attack.
The connection between the wearing of the rosary and his grandmother’s condition might exist only in his own mind.
There are other symbols that are more universally recognised as being associated with support of cancer victims and research.
I remember reading this article a couple of days ago. This seems like a case where the school is working to protect their students in good faith (no pun intended) rather than a suppression of religous beliefs. I think they will probably come to the reasonable conclusion that suppression of religous artifacts over potential gang affiliation is not the least restrictive means by which they can protect the student body. I like the way you presented this article as opposed to the way Fox News presented it (where I originally read about it). The war drums were sounding in the background as I read their piece. It’s amazing how much inflection can be given to an unstated position (Help, I’m being repressed! Don’t you see the violence inherent in the system, help! or some such) without any direct reference. It was a good example of some fairly subtle propaganda, or at the very least journalistic bias.
I heard some gang people wear pants. That school should bar all students from wearing pants.
Hyperbole aside, I think people should be allowed to wear discrete signs of their grief. I’m sure there are many ways to determine whether someone is a gang member or not, such as for instance the way the rosary is worn.