anotherlook

Recently Morehouse College, an all-male college in the Atlanta, Georgia area, has instituted a new dress code for its students. According to the new dress code, things like sagging pants, clothes with derogatory language, do-rags, jeans, hats/caps or hoods and sunglasses are not to be worn to class or to school sponsored events and some of these articles are not to be worn on campus at all. The penalty can be as strong as academic suspension.

I say, it’s about time!!!! I say this style of dress should be prohibited in public schools as well (K-12). I say part of education is to teach children that there is a time and place for everything, that boundaries are important, in most situations. Once you start crossing boundaries, things sometimes become chaotic as has happened in schools across America.

Along with the dress code should be a restriction on foul language. Some high school teachers allow kids to curse in front of them with no consequence to the foul language. I have seen it happen too many times. Those children feel that if they can curse in school, they can come on the school bus and curse. Their whole conversation consists of f*** this, f*** that, you motherf***in’ b****.

When you write a child up for cursing on the school bus, after repeated warnings, nothing happens to that child and the child feels it is ok to use this language. The bus driver loses some control if they do not know how to force the issue without involving the school.

Teaching a child respect is a community thing because a parent is not always around. You teach a child to respect themselves as well as others and foul mouthed conversations do not show respect. Children today use dress as a form of disrespect. I have seen children on the way to school with pants sagging way below their behind. Is this a subtle message telling the world to kiss their a**?

While everybody runs around screaming about their freedom to say this or do that, I feel I have freedoms that you infringe upon by showing me your underwear, by cursing in my presence, by acting out with violence, by using the language Rush Limbaugh uses in his divisive rants, by demanding that I can not hang the Christmas decorations of my religious choice in my mall windows, as well as any number of other acts that are permitted in our society today.

In fact, back to Morehouse, they have prohibited the wearing of female clothing, high heel shoes, tank tops etc. and the few openly gay students there are taking offense. These are the things that trouble me about gay guys especially and to some extent gay women as well. Gay guys can not have it both ways either you are a boy or a girl. If you feel so womanly that you are compelled to dress in female clothing, then you do not need to be going to an all-male school.

Boundaries again come into play here. This is what concerns me about the “don’t ask, don’t tell” concept in the military. Will the breakdown of don’t ask, don’t tell create more openly gay men in the military? Will they be allowed to dress in female clothing on their down time while attempting to act out in womanly ways? Will your young son be caught in a life or death situation, laying in a ditch with an openly gay man who proposes a “blow job” to your son prior to possible death?

While all gay guys/females are not on this level there are those that are and I have known enough gay guys to understand that they are constantly on the prowl and that they have been known to pull in a “newbie” every now and then if only for the experience.

I say boundaries are useful in the real world. Dress codes teach lessons and it takes a community to raise a child – we are all failing our children when we abuse the freedoms that have been granted, sending a clear message to our children that rules are made to be broken, that boundaries interfere with freedoms.

And that’s the way I see it!!!!

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