Oakland high school faces controversy after Palestinian flag flown

ExpressLane

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Oakland high school faces controversy after Palestinian flag flown
Controversy around the conflict between Israel and Hamas persists in the Bay Area. On Tuesday, an Oakland high school faced criticism after a Palestinian flag was flown above the school.

Freelance reporter Zach Haber first posted a photo of a Palestinian flag flying over Fremont High School. It is unclear who raised the flag and how long it had been up, but many Palestinians consider this flag a symbol of their identity and freedom.

By Wednesday, the flag was gone.

Some took to social media and voiced their concerns that Oakland Unified School District is not doing enough to protect its Jewish students.

"And people wonder why Jewish families don't feel safe in OUSD right now," a comment read.

Shira, a parent of Israeli and Arab ethnicity, has a son in seventh grade in the Oakland Unified School District.

"Our students are struggling to keep up after Covid with their math and their reading and I don't understand why this is such an issue here. And, if it was about peace, there would have been an Israeli flag and a peace sign as well," said Shira.

Shira said the display of that flag can be seen as divisive.
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Shira isn't wrong. The school isn't saying that they didn't fly the flag. If it wasn't school personnel that did it you would expect a denial but none has been issued. Flying the Palestinian flag was totally inappropriate.
 
Seeing Fremont High brings back memories and speaks to the demographic changes in Oakland.

When I was coming up Fremont High was mostly black (today it’s almost 70% Hispanic and under 20% black). We played them there in basketball and I’ve never been scared playing anywhere but this school would be the closest. Even my black teammates from low income parts of the City talked about how tough this school was.

Oakland is a progressive city and the teachers Union came out in support of the Palestinian people (immediately after the bombing). So anything that happens is not surprising
 
The most egregious part in this is that the Palestinian flag was flying in place of a US flag on a US public, government, building. It wasn't flown with a US flag, but in place of one.

Worse, flying that flag was in contravention of current California law:

State law requires the State and American flags to be displayed at all state buildings when the state is the sole or major tenant of the building (occupying more than 50 percent of the available space). The flags must be flown outside the building and must be prominently placed although a freestanding flagpole is not necessarily required.
https://www.dgs.ca.gov/Resources/SAM/TOC/1300/1330-8

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=430.&lawCode=GOV
 
Cheers to Too Short...;)
..and whoever put that flag up should be punished... school is no place for political protest...
 
What I find interesting is, these are many of the same people that were donning their pink pussy hats and marching in DC just a few years ago. The entire university and lower school system is in a sad need of an enema.
 
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