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Report: Crystal Lake school reopen protesters cheered Confederate flag

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Illinois

* Rob Sneed at WGN…

High school students and parents in Crystal Lake are rallying in a push to resume in-person learning.

Students and event organizers rallied Tuesday night in front of Prairie Ridge High School. Organizers intended for the event to be a place for people to come together to get students back in school.

However, at one point, people began to cheer for the Confederate flag. Some of them held signs supporting President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Some wore Make America Great Again hats. According to organizers, they did not intend for the event to be political.

“The main focus today is getting the kids back in school and putting the kids in the best position they can be in,” Steve Smith, co-organizer of the rally, said. “As parents, we don’t want this to be political and maybe we should make that a little more clear.”

The Trump and MAGA stuff is beside the point. The Confederate flag, however, is inherently racist. Full stop.

* And that’s not all. From a September 17th Shaw Media editorial…

Unfortunately, at protests in some places such as Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake, the majority of participating parents were maskless.

The CDC Wednesday released new indicators for decision making for schools to reopen. At the top of the list is the correct and consistent usage of masks.

When you show up in a pandemic to make a protest that children can safely return to school and you fail to follow even the most basic social distancing guidelines, you tend to lose some credibility.

And this also isn’t the first time a Confederate flag has been an issue at the school. Click here for that one.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:19 am

Comments

** this isn’t the first time that Prairie Ridge parents have displayed poor judgement. **

I believe both the WGN story and the editorial are about the same protest.

Comment by SaulGoodman Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:26 am
What Trump did… was allow the meekly racist to be full blown racist, gladly showing themselves for who they are.

This isn’t heritage, this is Illinois. We weren’t traitors.

The confederates were traitors, plain and simple, their symbol now, that flag, is the racism and hatred those traitors had, but now celebrated to feel good… about their racism, their hatred… of today.

Grant has it right, the confederates were traitors.

Those celebrating all that that flag is today are traitors too, to what Lincoln and Grant fought, and what is at stake today.

Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:28 am
Owning the libs

Comment by Ok Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:33 am
Dear Crystal Lake parents,
Illinois was on the winning side. The confederates were traitors. And racists. Think next time.
Regards,
A loyal citizen who knows his US history

Comment by phocion Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:35 am
As usual, OW is spot on. Northerners who cheer the Confederate flag are not celebrating an independent spirit. They’re dog whistling that slavery was an acceptable practice.

I always feel for the kids of such parents. How are they going to learn that equality is the right thing when they come from an environment like that?

Also, the hypocrisy that these people support “law and order” when they refuse to obey the simple mandate to wear a mask is pretty tiring.

Comment by Streator Curmudgeon Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:41 am
You guys, this flag business is about heritage, not hate. Don’t you remember the stories about the heroic Crystal Lake regiment that fought for the Confederacy and to protect the institution of slavery more than 50 years before their town was chartered?

This display of the confederate flag is simply a celebration of the history of a community that is more than 90% white and has nothing at all to do with any racism whatsoever. It’s just history!

/s

Seriously. What is wrong with these people. At least it was the wrong time of day for a cross burning.

Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:49 am
Our ancestors in Illinois fought and died to keep this country intact. Now we have people waving the flag of the side that fought to tear it apart. The intimate sign of disrespect for the Union Veterans and the red white and blue flag. Yet these same people go crazy because a football player kneels during the National Anthem, because someone of Hispanic heritage waves a flag from their ancestors’ country, or because a tattered flag is still flying above a store.
How can they not recognize behavior in themselves that they condemn in others?

Comment by thoughts matter Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:52 am
“We’re not really like that,” said the people who consistently show themselves to be exactly like that.

– MrJM

Comment by @misterjayem Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 11:55 am
How could they possibly claim that a re-open the schools rally isn’t inherently political? For the most part, it’s MAGA-types pushing that, not Democrats.

Comment by Joe Bidenopolous Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:01 pm
I wonder what would happen if a history teacher at a hat school taught the self evident truth that secession was treason
We are living in the Land of Lincoln it was a war of treason not Yankee aggression. I feel like I am living in Georgia in 1955

Comment by DuPage Saint Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:02 pm
=“As parents, we don’t want this to be political and maybe we should make that a little more clear.”=

Why do you have to make that “a little more clear”? Shouldn’t these adults know that already?

Maybe we are looking at the flying of the traitorous confederate battle flag the wrong way. Maybe their intent is to connect the high mortality rate of casualties and prisoners of war due to disease and infections to the current pandemic? /s

Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:07 pm
I see people displaying Confederate flags as a Bill Engval “Here’s your sign” kind of thing. They have their sign and it lets others know not to bother listening to them.

I also have a few questions for them. How can you say you support individual Liberty and Freedom for all, yet honor a system that was built to deny people liberty and freedom? How can you claim to be a Patriot, yet support an insurrection against our Nation? How can you claim to honor our Flag, yet display a flag that was carried in battle against it?
How can you support a society that was formed and seceded from the USA that was the exact opposite of what you claim to fight against.
The CSA was simply, a Country that was formed to support the Ruling Elite Class, and enslaving others to support this Ruling Class. Doesn’t that sound similar to what you claim to fight against?

Comment by SOIL M Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:08 pm
Maybe they could ask Ken Leonard to speak at their next rally. He seems to like exhibiting his grasp of history as it relates to HS events.

Comment by Give Me A Break Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:15 pm
Anyone who ever cheered for the confederate flag is my enemy and the enemy of America…now and forever.

Comment by Dotnonymous Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:18 pm
“They did not intend for the event to get politcal”.

Riiiiiiiight.

Comment by btowntruthfromforgottonia Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:26 pm
It’s obvious that the people who really need to go back to school are the parents who are so ignorant of the history of our country and the values upon which it was founded.

Comment by Norseman Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:27 pm
Per usual, Bugs Bunny’s wisdom is spot on: What a bunch of ultramaroons.

Oh, and please feel free to move south of the Mason-Dixon line. It would be a reverse brain drain.

Comment by LBJ Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:33 pm
Cheering traitors. Un American.

Comment by Amalia Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 1:01 pm
I hate Illinois Confederates

Comment by SAP Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 1:31 pm
I do feel bad for those who attended in good faith and observed social distancing. It is probably similar to the feeling good faith protesters feel when a member of their group throws a molotov at a federal courthouse

Comment by TaxTheMemes Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 1:40 pm
=== SOIL M - Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 12:08 pm:===

The article Rich linked to is especially cringe worthy, a quote from the kid that brought the flag to school as a part of a project called “my vision.”

“I brought in the flag to basically enlighten other students of my vision of the flag itself,” said Hunter, a junior. “And by doing so I enlightened the entire school when I walked down the hallway [wearing the flag].”

Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 1:48 pm
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 1:48 pm:
I had not read that. Thank You.
That is part of the point I was hoping to make. His “vision” of the flag and what it stood for is wrong. It did not stand for Freedom, it stood for a ruling class that felt they were entitled to enslave People to serve them. He needs corrective lenses to improve his vision. If he does support Freedom and Independence, he is supporting the wrong flag.

To be completely honest, as a teenager I had one also. I was ignorant then. I learned better. Hopefully they will as well.

Comment by SOIL M Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 3:11 pm
There are so many wonderful comments about the idiocy of flying that traitorous flag. A sincere thank you to all commenters. Hunter, the junior mentioned above, should take out his phone, open internet explorer, and type in “Andersonville Civil War Prison” and “war crimes” and in Google see what comes up.

Comment by Paddyrollingstone Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 3:16 pm
I hope not to offend.

I was born and raised in the South, in a very Southern family. Very Southern. I came to Illinois 25 years ago.

That flag. Down South people may arguably suggest there are family ties and heritage and blah, blah, blah. My family does. Lots of veterans of that war (and the first one against England).

But down South, that argument doesn’t hold water. My relatives were (and some still are) racists. That flag recalled a time when people were free to own other people. They fought that war to protect the rights of an upper class (the landed aristocracy) to own humans. My relatives who fought in that war were fools, serving an evil intent.

So here I am in Illinois. Today, I see Illinoisans waving that same flag. Clearly, it is not about “heritage” here. It is something else that leads people here to wave a flag that says “I rebel against out government,” and “I am not a racist - I only wave the flag of racism in order to offend to make a point about rebellion against the United States.”

Right. That flag was the battle flag for maintaining slavery. Adopting it here is a classic act of ignorance - the intentional act of ignoring. What is ignored? The children of slaves. The KKK uprising of the 1870s. The organized lynchings of thousands and thousands of African Americans by people from 1870 to 1965, who were waving that same flag as they lynched.

Illinoisans who wave this flag are not rebels. They are simply choosing to ignore the truths of that evil symbol in order to suggest they are superior to the law of the land, and implicitly, the people of the Land of Lincoln. Shame of them.

Comment by H-W Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 3:28 pm
thx SAP - that’s the perfect reference. Jake was a pithy observer of dysfunction malcontents.

Comment by in the no Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 3:31 pm
Isn’t the Kenosha shooter from that same area? McHenry County…get a clue.

Comment by former state employee Tuesday, Sep 29, 20 @ 5:04 pm