South Burlington High School students and faculty will raise a Black Lives Matter flag on Friday, and some residents have sharply criticized the plan.
The school board voted unanimously to support the flag-raising back in June. It will fly at the school during February in honor of Black History Month. School officials expect to hoist it in future years to mark the month.
Partly in response to concerns about potential disruptions and safety, school district leaders have limited public access. Only students and employees will be able to attend the 3 p.m. event. Other observers, including members of the news media, will only be allowed to watch from across the street from the school, on the west side of Dorset Street, in the parking lot by South Burlington’s municipal building.
“Keeping the Black Lives Matter flag-raising assembly and outside ceremony limited to students and staff enhances student safety,” superintendent David Young said in a public statement. “Additionally, the student leaders’ and their advisers’ goal for both the assembly and ceremony is to raise awareness, deepen learning and inspire further dialogue within their school community.”
The upcoming event has triggered criticism on the Rebel Alliance Facebook page.
It’s the group that launched an unsuccessful bid to stop the school district from dropping its mascot name, the Rebels, after critics said it had racist overtones connected to the Confederacy. The 2017 school board vote to change the name withstood legal challenges all the way to the Vermont Supreme Court. The district adopted a new moniker, the Wolves, in June 2017.
One of the Rebel Alliance leaders, South Burlington resident Sheldon Katz, has asked the board not to fly the flag or hold the high school and middle school assemblies that are planned in connection with the event. He also suggested on Facebook that students should “conscientiously object” by staying away from school on Friday.
He has voiced his concerns at school board meetings, on the Rebel Alliance Facebook page and via email to Seven Days.
“All good citizens should oppose the board’s decision to fly the Black Lives Matter flag and to hold BLM assemblies at SBSD schools,” he wrote. “BLM’s toxic mix of victimhood, white guilt, and entitlement is contrary to the teachings of black luminaries like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Shelby Steele.”
He contends the flag is tied to a larger political movement and that by flying it, the school district is taking sides on contentious issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Nationally, the Black Lives Matter movement formed in 2013 and 2014 to protest police shootings of unarmed black men and teens. It has generated claims of anti-police bias as well as support from people who say the movement is bravely challenging a long history of racism in the United States.
It has also gradually become a broader movement with platforms outlined on gay rights, international politics and border issues at sites such as the Black Lives Matter Global Network. The pro-Palestinian views of some BLM national leaders have prompted calls of anti-Semitism from critics.
“BLM supports destroying Israel, the Middle East’s only liberal democracy and the world’s only safe-haven for Jews, including Black Jews,” Katz wrote. The school district should not use taxpayer funds to support what he views as an anti-Semitic organization, he continued.
School board chair Elizabeth Fitzgerald declined to comment, but she released a statement to Seven Days that the board crafted in response to criticism.
“We understand that all our decisions are not popular with all our constituents, but we do our best to support the efforts of our students even when those may be potentially controversial,” her statement read.
“Our students asked to raise the flag as a symbol of inclusion and support for all students. To quote from the students’ formal request to the Board last spring: ‘We endeavor to create an accepting, equitable, and empathetic environment at SBHS. In raising the flag, we do not attempt to undermine the value of each and every student, but we do act to affirm the value of South Burlington’s Black students.’”
In July 2017, an 18-year-old graduate of the school was charged with spray-painting racist graffiti on its football field.
Other Vermont schools have also flown Black Lives Matter flags.
Montpelier High School got the trend moving with a flag-raising in February 2018. The school received threats, but the principal defended the decision, saying the sentiment was not anti-police but anti-bias.
Burlington High School followed suit with a flag-raising, also last February. U32 Middle and High School in East Montpelier has also raised the banner, as has Essex High School.
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For a more in depth and frankly, coherent perspective on this topic, I suggest reading one or more of the many great articles in South Burlington’s The Other Paper.
Does not seem like a lot of students in the picture just teachers and administers. Maybe a field trip is in order. Lets take a group of South Burlington High School Junior and Seniors on a field trip to Baltimore. We will drop them off in the Monument Street area at 10 am and come back and pick them up at 2pm. They can parade around Baltimore with their flag. Those that make it back can proudly raise the Black Lives Matter flag above the school if they return.
Or better yet lets leave the students home and just take all the teachers in this photo. I have lived in Maryland and shed blood in Baltimore. You cannot just sit up in Burlington and think you understand this issue.
Thank goodness a white guy interjected a list of approved black voices
Why should a BLM flag be raised when all lives matter? Seems like they are being discriminatory towards white people!
I completely agree with Sheldon on this one. As an alum from SBHS and a parent, I disagree with the views of BLM but support Black History month. School is not the place for politics.
“The upcoming event has triggered criticism on the Rebel Alliance Facebook page.”
Racists being racists? I’m heckin’ shocked! My surprise knows no bounds!
Frankly, I have a hard time being ok with this. BLM as an organization pays lobbyists in most state capitals and DC. I’m a firm believer that no taxpayer funded institution should be publicly supporting any organization paying lobbyists to influence our lawmakers.
If a privately funded school wanted to do this, fine. But if the public at large is paying the bills, the school should never be making any sort of political statement. Unfortunately, when BLM went from just being a movement to an organization paying lobbyists, raising that flag became just that.
Sheldon Katz was charged with intimidating a minor regarding this issue. Don’t listen to a word he says. He should be locked up.
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/…
Sometimes it makes me cry, if we could just get rid of that socialist hell hole called Burlington, Vermont might be a nice place nice to live again. These teachers should all be fired, this is why America is so screwed up today. MAGA