True Loyalty?

"It's just who I am. I'm a redneck. It's a way of life."

This past week, a local Oregon school bus driver was fired by his school district for flying the Confederate Flag out of his own truck. He was dismissed after he refused an order from school officials to remove the flag, which is emblazoned with the word "Redneck". The school said that the flag violated a policy prohibiting symbols that "could be offensive to minorities". While multiple civil rights groups have applauded the decision, others have called for the removal of the school officials. 

Personally, I have to disagree with the decision made by the school board. First off, I do not think that his intentions are meant to be harmful to African-Americans. While slavery and black oppression will forever be associated with the Confederate Flag, it was absolutely not intended. As society and the southern identity has progressed, the meaning of the Confederate Flag shows southern loyalty. This is very similar with the Texas and the Colorado flags. The citizens of these states are attached to their heritage from this place, just like Southerns. Secondly, the school bus driver is flying the flag on his own private property and not on the school's property. Lastly, the word "redneck" across the flag again proves the point that the flag is simply the driver's way of showing pride in his upbringing. There is nothing wrong with that.

Scholarships for Athletes

This week, longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader is calling for the elimination of college athletic scholarships, saying the move is necessary to "de-professionalize" college athletes. Nader says that this proposed move would be replaced with need-based financial aid for students and would restore academic integrity to collegiate sports.

While this appears to be a legitimate concept on paper, in reality, this idea would never actually work when it is implemented. First off, the plan would never be implemented because the colleges that would be affected would never agree to it. The biggest source of revenue for universities like Ohio State and Florida is in the athletic department, specifically football and men's basketball. The college culture that surrounds these "big money" sports has already been developed and is used by all of the power conferences. The way to get the most money from these sports is to assemble the best team possible, and the way to do this is to recruit the most talented kids to your program. A recruiting staple that all Division I colleges use is a full athletic scholarship to attract these student-athletes. Especially in the power sports, five-star recruits demand athletic scholarships and, for the most part, colleges will give one to them. With this already a vital part of collegiate sports, in is unfeasible to simply erase it from college culture.

I do agree, however, that academics in collegiate sports need to be much more important. After all, they don't call them student-athletes for nothing.

Junior Theme Issues

As I started Junior Theme last week, I already knew exactly what topic I wanted to discuss in my paper. Since I am a high school male athlete, I am very interested in Title IX and its side-effects on collegiate sports, specifically on men's sports. In addition, because of the fanfare that surrounds the essay, I had heard that the junior theme was a persuasive research paper, and this really cemented the topic that I wanted to do. But, as I should have known, this American Studies class is much different than other classes.


As I soon figured out, going into the junior theme with this mindset is completely wrong. Because I already had an opinion on my topic, I could not research Title IX with an open mind. Instead, I had a very narrow viewpoint that did not grasp the other side of the arguments. When I decided to change topics to something that I had not learned as much about, capital punishment, it was much easier to think of the junior theme as an inquiry and not something that it shouldn't be.

Democracy = Participation

For roughly the past month now, there have been many protests in the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison over Governor Scott Walker's controversial move to suspend unions' rights to a collective bargaining agreement, among other things. Because of these actions, fourteen of the Wisconsin Senate Democrats have fled the state in an attempt to change Governor Walker's opinion. Despite many protesters currently working to stop this from happening, Governor Walker appears to be winning and has shown no indication of revoking this movement.

More recently, Governor Walker issued an ultimatum, saying that if the Democratic senators do not return to work soon, there will be many job firings of state employees. This firm statement makes many people believe that Governor Walker is not being tolerant enough and should attempt to compromise. Many have even called Walker's action "dictatorial". I have disagree with these statements. Governor Walker's response is justified because of the actions by the Wisconsin state representatives that precipitated it. The purpose of a democratic government is for full representation by the people. So when these elected officials leave the state in order to not fulfill their duty, they are completely disobeying their job.

I have heard many liberals who do not support Walker claim that because of his supposed iron-fist on the matter of trimming the budget, it has shown that he is not willing to move from his position. The opposite is actually true, as Walker has made it clear that he is willing to have civil discussions about improving his plans reduce the state deficit. Despite this, these state senators whom people elected are being ignorant and are actually the ones not being reasonable.

I want to remind the democratic senators that it is their job to participate in their government. After all, the people of Wisconsin entrusted them with the duty to fulfill what they want from their government. By running away from the problem instead of facing it head on, they are failing in their job and are not representing their people. They will not fix the problem if they do not participate in the government for their people.