11-year-old Florida boy arrested for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance

[politicaljunkie41910]

26. No he doesn't, and I blame his mother for his attitude. I guess we know who runs that home.

That's the problem these days. Parents who are afraid to parent their children. Yes the substitute teacher could have handled the situation better, so as not to allow the child to disrupt the entire class, but parents need to teach their children that when they are in school, the Teacher is in charge and the child is to follow his/her directions, even if they disagrees with them at the time.

What other rules does that child get to decide for himself at home whether or not he's going to follow or not? This is particularly a problem if he's a young black man. The police are not going to just ignore him if he doesn't obey their commands on the street. His mother is doing him an injustice by allowing him to disrespect authority, and if she doesn't get a handle on things soon, one of these days, she's going to be crying real tears. With classroom sizes around 40 students, teachers don't have time for 40 children's opinions on what they want to do at any given moment. And those children who are respectful of authority don't deserve to have their class time disrupted by those who don't.

“My son was arrested in front of his classmates,” the boy’s mom, Dhakira Talbot, said as she wiped away tears. ... Talbot said her son normally doesn't stand for the pledge, but last week he had a substitute teacher who instructed him to stand up. According to the arrest report, the boy told the sub he wouldn't stand "because the flag of this country is racist."

As a black woman myself, and one of 9 children growing up in Los Angeles, we were taught to respect and obey authority, because our parents wanted us to make it back home in one piece. Our responsibility was to obey the rules, and our parents would take care of making sure the teachers were enforcing the rules in a fair and honest way. As the parents of 3 adult children myself, I taught my children the same thing because I didn't want any of my children to become just another statistic.

I have over the years had many relatives, friends, and neighbors who are teachers and this child's attitude is typical of a lot of children and parent's attitudes today. Teachers have a very hard job to do and what they need is the parent's support, not their apathy.