Eleven-Year-Old Arrested For Not Standing During Pledge of Allegiance

An eleven-year-old boy at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland, Florida was arrested this because he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Oh, yes, he was. There was apparently some sort of back-and-forth between the child and teacher, a substitute teacher, but most of what we know is from the report the teacher gave, not from the boy,

That day, when the boy was told to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, he told the teacher that the flag is racist against black people, and she replied:

“Why if it was so  bad here he did not go to another place to live.”

America; love it or leave it. And apparently she knew the child was not from "here" because he was a “different” color so clearly he’s not one of “us”? But the young man wasn’t playing, and simply told his teacher he couldn’t go back where he came from because:

“They brought me here.”

And the teacher, an immigrant from another country, told the student:

“Well you can always go back, because I came here from Cuba and the day I feel I’m not welcome here anymore I would find another place to live.”

And then she called the principal's office because she “did not want to continue dealing with him.”

Dealing with him? It seems he dealt with you, because I wonder how this teacher from Cuba would feelif, as we’ve seen time and again, a white person told her to go home?

But then came the arrest. A school resource officer said the student threatened to beat the teacher , wouldn’t follow directions, and said the principal should be fired. The young man says he never threatened anyone, but still an 11-year-old child was arrested and charged with resisting arrest without violence and disrupting a school function; he was taken to a juvenile detention center.

For not standing.

And he had every right not to stand. A public relations specialist representing the Polk County Public Schools clarified that students may choose not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance but that the substitute teacher did not know this. But why not check with anyone else at the school, including the principal, before arresting a child? And after arresting the child the school released a statement saying the teacher was unaware of their policy, but that she “will no longer be allowed to substitute at any of our schools.“

But the child was arrested. In America, for taking a stand by not standing, and being allowed by their school to take that stand.

DailyKos