What happened when a school district banned thin blue line flags
In late October, administrators in a suburban New York school district told employees that some of their apparel was making students feel uncomfortable, and even threatened.
At issueweremasks showing the so- called thin blue line flag that signals support for the police but has increasingly been used to display opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, which rose in opposition to racismin policing.
Wearing the symbol violated a district policy prohibiting employees from expressing political speech, officials said. The logo, a black-and-white version of the American flag with a single blue stripe at its center, could no longer be worn.
Days later, a group of employees of the district, in Pelham, NewYork, appeared atworkwearing shirts bearing theword “Vote” and the names of Black peoplewho hadbeen killedby the police, prompting accusations of political bias.
The controversy has divided Pelham, an affluent and mostly white Westchester County town of about 12,000 north of New York City.
The tense debate exemplifies the political tinderbox thatmuch of the United States has become, where an emblem on a mask or a patch on a sleeve can ignite a dispute that consumes a community.
At the center of the conflict is a symbol that has come to mean vastly different things to different people, a black, white and blue Rorschach testwhose significance continues to shiftamida continuing national reckoning over racismand police violence.
“It made a lot of people upset here, obviously,” said RalphDeMasi, a school safety coordinator who was told not to wear the flag. “Clearly a directivewas given. One side followed it, while another sidewas allowed to express their views.”
Facebook discussions have grown heated. Neighbors staked out clear positions and lined up in the cold to speak at a public meeting. School employees and parents said they had gotten threatening messages as the district attracted national media attention.
“People are taking this hard line,” said Solange Hansen, a Black and Latina woman who moved to Pelham last year and whose teenage son is a student there. “All of a sudden, overnight, you see these blue line flags on people’s lawns. You see them in people’s businesses. And that makes it really hard for the people of color.”
On Friday evening, The Pelham Examiner, a local news outlet, published a letterwritten by a Pelham high school senior, Nadine LeeSang, that expressed support for the district’s policy and said that the flag reminded
students of color of “racist experiences they have had” with law enforcement.
“Nobodywas really talking about how students felt uncomfortable, and it was kind of being dismissed,” LeeSang, 17, who is Black and Asian, said in an interview. Her letter was signed by 15 other people, most of them also students.
The debate over the flag’s meaning has played out across the country, particularly after widespread protests this summeroverpolice brutality and systemic racism.
An Ohio school district banned it after a football player displayed it before a game; a school in another Ohio district suspended students for carrying it onto the field. Therewere opposing rallies in a Massachusetts town where officials ordered the flag removed from fire trucks.
Those who support the flag say it has long been used to honor law enforcement officerswho sacrificed their lives, and that it is not meant as a political statement.
“It signifies a memorial, a connection between officers killed in the line of duty and those who continue with their duties,” said Carla Caccavale, a Pelham resident who has four children enrolled in district schools andwhose father, a NewYork City Transit detective, was killed trying to stop a robbery.
Caccavale hasmadesweatshirts honoring her father’s memory that include a thin blue line patch. Although she initiallymade them only for her family and another family, she has begun to sell them to support police-related charities.
When school staff members were told they could no longerwear the flag, her sweatshirtswere included in the ban. She said the decision baffled her.
“You have to look at the intention of thesweatshirts,” she said.
But supporters of the district’s ban on the flag said the logo could not be divorced from its current context as a symbol for the pro-police Blue LivesMattermovement that sprang up in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
In recent months, the flag hasbecomeamorecommon sight at pro-police demonstrations around New York andelsewhere. Ithungprominently behind President DonaldTrumpat a campaign rally in Wisconsin, and the campaign has sold merchandise bearing the symbol.
DeMasi, the Pelham school employee who was told not to wear the flag, said he did not connect it to white supremacists. But he acknowledgedithadbecome a political symbol.
“Obviously, you’ve seen caravans withtheTrumpflag in the back of pickup trucks and then the thin blue line,” DeMasi, a former police officer, said. “I think it ended up giving the meaning of the thin blue line a black eye.”