'Lesbians are cool' T-shirt puts Massachusetts school in national spotlight

[PDH]

This is the sort of stupid shit that drove me nuts in school.

Lesbians drove you nuts or lesbians wearing shirts?

[Valmy]

Lesbians drove you nuts or lesbians wearing shirts?

How do you know the person wearing the shirt was a lesbian?  He/she might have just been a fan.

No stupid nonsense being made into big controversies.

[Eddie Teach]

Life would be pretty dull if only important things became controversial.

[KRonn]

Heck, this is Massachusetts. I'd assume the only controversial issue would be the kids NOT wearing a t-shirt like this. 

[Valmy]

Life would be pretty dull if only important things became controversial.

I guess if you find pointless assemblies and poorly thought out and unevenly enforced rules entertaining sure.

[Eddie Teach]

Life would be pretty dull if only important things became controversial.

I guess if you find pointless assemblies and poorly thought out and unevenly enforced rules entertaining sure.

You presume that there's no controversy if the school looks the other way. That's not always the case.

[Valmy]

You presume that there's no controversy if the school looks the other way. That's not always the case.

I fail to see how something annoying me means I presume anything.  It is probably just the nature of the beast.

[Eddie Teach]

I believe we are talking at cross-purposes.

[Valmy]

I believe we are talking at cross-purposes.

I guess a good example, and there were similar things happening at least once a semester it seemed, was this incident where this one girl wrote this hilariously racist article in the school...um...newspaper...whatever the student publication was.  And so we all had to endure all this training and assemblies about combatting racism and it was on the news and all this ridiculous over the top stuff.  I mean it was this one girls problem, but the presumption was if one kid did it was this big serious school wide problem.  Now probably that is the right response for a big bureaucratic school district to make, and indeed probably the one they are capable of, but man it was tiresome.  As soon as one idiot did something stupid I knew we were all in for it.

Two years later some boy wrote a hilariously sexist article in the student publication and we got to do the whole thing all over again.  And of course it was likely in both cases the kids were doing it primarily to trigger this exact response from the adults.  Granted in this particular case the shirt wearer may not have been trolling and there was nothing that bad about her shirt but hey in my school they also banned all playing cards and came down hard on anybody with cards because, get this, a group of guys was found gambling on craps in the bathroom.  And a big deal was made about gambling in schools.

[Martinus]

I think you have a wrong perspective, Valmy. School is not supposed to be that laissez-faire free market of ideas - the problem here is not that the school took action about something that it found offensive but that the school found a t-shirt like this offensive.

[Gups]

Do you  have school uniforms in the States?

[MadImmortalMan]

Do you  have school uniforms in the States?

That would be: OMG NAZI!!!!!!11111


So no. Frankly, I wouldn't really see a problem with it.

[Ideologue]

They are a figment of your imagination, like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

If it's in porn, it's real.

Okay Ide! 

They do their own stunts.

[sbr]

There are schools with uniforms but they are mostly private schools, of course there are public schools with unis but I think that is the exception.

[Ideologue]

I believe we are talking at cross-purposes.

I guess a good example, and there were similar things happening at least once a semester it seemed, was this incident where this one girl wrote this hilariously racist article in the school...um...newspaper...whatever the student publication was.  And so we all had to endure all this training and assemblies about combatting racism and it was on the news and all this ridiculous over the top stuff.  I mean it was this one girls problem, but the presumption was if one kid did it was this big serious school wide problem.  Now probably that is the right response for a big bureaucratic school district to make, and indeed probably the one they are capable of, but man it was tiresome.  As soon as one idiot did something stupid I knew we were all in for it.

Two years later some boy wrote a hilariously sexist article in the student publication and we got to do the whole thing all over again.  And of course it was likely in both cases the kids were doing it primarily to trigger this exact response from the adults.  Granted in this particular case the shirt wearer may not have been trolling and there was nothing that bad about her shirt but hey in my school they also banned all playing cards and came down hard on anybody with cards because, get this, a group of guys was found gambling on craps in the bathroom.  And a big deal was made about gambling in schools.

That's some bullshit.  I learned spades in high school.