Your Superintendent, you know...

I was going to close this article, it being just another story of misapplied Political Correctness doctrine, the whole subject becoming tiring by now. The first paragraph seemed to be enough:

Officials in a California school district said a middle school student was told to take a U.S. flag off his bike to avoid "racial tension."

Another bureaucrat mixes up racism with patriotism in his fervent desire to be politically correct, so what?

Then I got distracted by something else. When I've returned to the screen, I've automatically continued reading the article. Oh boy...

Denair Unified School District Superintendent Edward Parraz said Cody Alicea, 13, was told not to fly the U.S. flag from his bike while at Denair Middle School after complaints from other students, KCRA-TV, Sacramento, Calif., reported.

This is where it starts. OK, I am not supposed to understand how American flag, carried by an American kid in an American school, is deemed to be an irritant to other American kids. And why school management supports the irritated kids instead of checking with them the reason for this irritation - perhaps they require some chemical additives to their diet to calm them down or something?  What do I know anyway... Then came this:

"(The) First Amendment is important," Parraz said. "We want the kids to respect it, understand it, and with that comes a responsibility."

Which confused me even more. As far as I understand the First A., it is supposed to be supportive of the flag waving kid. Or any other kid or adult who decides to display this or another symbol on his bike, on his shirt or wherever he/she chooses. So why does Mr Parraz mention it, to start with? And now:

"Our Hispanic, you know, kids will, you know, bring their Mexican flags and they'll display it, and then of course the kids would do the American flag situation, and it does cause kind of a racial tension which we don't really want," Parraz said. "We want them to appreciate the cultures."

The insistence of Mr Parraz on American flag causing "kind of a racial tension" amazes me again. But even if we discard that "racial" point, why should American flag, displayed in Sacramento, cause tension at all? I mean, Sacramento is not an Iranian city. And why the response to American flag should be a Mexican flag? Is Sacramento in US*? Why should an American kid, no matter whether he/she is of Mexican, Chinese or African extraction, be incensed by viewing an American flag?

All these, you know, questions, like really, you know, do a confusion situation here.


(*) It is, I have checked again to make sure.