Teacher confiscated AKA shirt from girl at school
 

A teacher in Nashville saw that a child in her class was wearing an AKA shirt. Since the child is not a member, the teacher confiscated the shirt and gave the child a new shirt. Complicating matters...the child is white and got the shirt as a hand-me-down from the mother's friend.

I would think that, because "AKA" are Latin letters, which don't read as "Greek", the mother didn't know it was a "Greek" shirt. Plus, a general member of the public wouldn't know what the significance of 1908 is anyway. They probably thought it was just the logo of the clothing brand or something. The teacher could have addressed it differently than to take the little girl's shirt from her and sending her home in a different outfit.

Link: https://www.newschannel5.com/news/wh...-letters-on-it

We’ve got teachers teaching students how to make “black face” art for Black History Month, so that’s lightweight, although not surprising to me. Some of these teachers don’t need to be teaching.

Who handed down the shirt? I’d start with that first. I know a lot of white Sigmas, so race isn’t the issue for me. It’s the person that handed down the shirt that I would have a problem with.

I see a lot of Greek shirts at the Salvation Army and Goodwill, so maybe they got it there.

Honest question, the shirt appears to have been manufactured to be a child's sized shirt and, I assume, be marketed to children. Is the daughter of an AKA allowed to wear the shirt even though the child did not pledge and is not a member?


Possibly. If this was the case, are we to shame poor people who wear hand me downs or have to shop at a thrift store for clothes? :(

They usually specify. For kids, I’ve seen “Future (insert GLO), or my mom or my dad is a (insert GLO). That’s the first time I’ve seen a shirt designed for a kid without specifying. I’m a teacher myself (6th graders), and I felt the teacher was a bit out of line. You don’t take some clothes off of some parent(s) kid’s back. She should have figured a more appropriate way to handle the situation.

I’d be upset if saw anything PBS at a thrift store. I usually give my PBS items away to new members, or cut out the letters, shield, etc. frame it and hang it up somewhere in my house. Never do I just leave my letters in just anyone’s hands.

I had told Greeks to never give their old gear to shops like goodwill, as it could end up in the hands of a non member. Most organizations have t shirt swaps where you can sell old or unwanted gear, or you can try to give them to another member.

It's a shirt on a 7-year-old. Who cares?

I’m assuming you saw the same clip I did, so obviously the teacher cared enough to snatch the shirt off the 7 year old’s back, as if she thought she was going to an AKA party to stroll, holding one pinky up, yelling “Skee Wee!” Duh.

ASTalumna06, you're right. She's a kid. Who cares?

In summer 2020 (height of pandemic) I saw a 15-16 year old girl wearing a nice, clean, beautifully designed, 1991-dated IU Kite, Key and Anchor Party tshirt. She was in an ice cream parlor with several friends (no parents). I loved seeing her in the shirt, and wondered if/where she was a legacy.

Without having discussed the matter with the girl, my main takeaway was that she and her Mom must have shared some truly special, quality time that year discussing Greek Life.

Someone who makes Greek shirts has to be giving their overload to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Awhile back, I posted about how a bunch of teachers were riding down our main street and I saw some Guatemalan guys wearing pink AKA shirts with green sewn-on letters. We were close enough to them that I could see the folds from newly-opened shirts.

I commented to the elderly AKA in the middle of the seat something like, "Hey, look at your new sisters!" and she looked and screamed, "WHAT?" and started trying to climb over me and get out of the moving car! We had to hold her down to keep her from jumping out!

Lol!!!!

Now I’ve got this mental image of the 7 year old in the front with that substitute teacher all the way in the back… strolling Lol
https://youtu.be/qbQA6tHgAtg?si=NueNo8RIN5YhOw78

That's a plausible situation that I hadn't considered.

I did see some Chi Omega crafts at my local Salvation army, but I naturally didn't pick it up.

On the other end, what are the chances a Greek pops into a thrift shop, finds a shirt from their org, and buys it?

Thinking back...I did see a very new-looking KKG sewn-letters shirt at the Salvation Army years ago. I had forgotten all about it. I bought it and sent it to one of the old-time Kappas here, I think iamsohappythatiama.

Something that bounced in my mind...

If this is a shirt that is worn by a 7 year old, it is *very* unlikely to be surplus, since those would be in adult sizes.

You would be surprised by how big some children are in elementary school. I certainly have worked with youngsters who could wear adult sizes. And also children whose families didn’t have much would put clothes on them that may be too big.

We care.

I had a homeless client who wore a donation shirt with Greek letters (like an event tshirt) on it in a facility I worked at. She literally only owned like two shirts, so I wasn’t about to go bum-rushing over there and ripping her shirt off when she was already dealing with enough problems in her life. And anyone who would is…a word that’s probably not very polite to use on a forum.

I tend to believe that the second grade girl and her mother had no knowledge that this shirt was related to a Greek letter organization. It was sparkly and that appealed to this little girl.



From watching the news story in the link, the shirt has been returned to the girl with an apology from the school administration. The reading intervention teacher has been instructed to alert administration should this situation arise again. That seems like an appropriate resolution to me.

The total irony of your signature line..... :D:D:D:D

"A MAN’S STRENGTH IS DEMONSTRATED BY HIS GENTLENESS AND HIS KINDNESS"

When my daughter was in middle and high school, she would sometimes wear my husband's old Pi Kappa Phi sweatshirt (not to school though). It's a comfy big shirt. She's obviously not a brother.

I hollered! The mental of this made me Lmao!
Lmao!

LOL!! You clearly articulated what I was thinking, but stated it so much better! :D

Surely this could have been handled better initially. It didn't sound nice. Or compassionate. Or like it preserved the dignity of the child involved and possibly the parent(s). And I'd say the same thing if they were my letters.

Letters are outward symbols of teachings and values that are supposed to make us better people.

Any time there was a potential violation of the clothing policy at any of the schools where I taught, I referred the potential violation to admin, figuring it was above my pay grade. This school doesn’t seem to have a uniform requirement, so there probably wasn’t a clothing violation committed. Teacher doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Yes, there was a clothing requirements issue. From the article, a quote from the school system: " While the shirt was not in accordance with the school’s dress code due to having writing"...

But as part of that the *teacher* shouldn't have handled that, she should have been sent to the office.

Now the bizarre question is if the shirt had been for Delta Sigma Theta or Omega Psi Phi, would they have considered the letters to be writing given that they were entirely made of Greek Letters that don't look like letters in the Latin Alphabet.

My bad. Thank you for catching that.

Hahahahahahahaha!!!

I think it is important to consider several issues of a larger order here.

First, why is this news? How did it become news? What are the cultural and intercultural issues at play here which make it newsworthy?

Why did the parent feel that her child's anonymity was less important than bringing this to a news outlet?

Would a Black family have had more awareness of the taboo of wearing Greek symbols and signs?

Why is the taboo around this seemingly de-emphasized?

What role do the norms around predominantly white GLOs play in our own opinions about this? Example: Your "new members" can usually wear letters, but ours cannot.

I am not saying that the teacher was correct in her execution of this, but she's entitled to be offended by something that is important to her. A note home without the wardrobe change might have sufficed.

My opinion is that a lower class white woman was offended by an upper-class Black woman exerting power over her in a fairly embarrassing way*, and decided to go full throttle on the retaliation by involving the media.

This should not have been news.

*and this has happened so often over the years on this very website, I know exactly how this conversation will turn out lol

How did you determine that the white family was lower class?

Do you think a middle or upper class white family would have known the AKA shirt should not be worn?

Do you think a lower class black family would realize that wearing the AKA shirt was taboo?

Of course it's news! It would have been news had they both been black, or both been white, or it wasn't even a Greek shirt. NO teacher has a right to decide on her own to take a child's shirt away and give her some random shirt!

I’m stereotyping but I don’t have a monopoly on that problem. She’s definitely a low class white woman. Probably never even been to college.

While not going to college may make a difference in knowing what AKA is, it certainly isn't a guarantee. I am a male who attended an expensive private university *with* greek life (14 NIC, 5 PHC) and I didn't know *any* of the Historically Black GLOs until well after I graduated. (The NPHC fraternities and sororites had city chapters that were generally organized at the larger Public College elsewhere in the City). And even once I did know them, I wouldn't have associated it with the year and the colors until even later.

My guess about her background was just based on what she looked like. That’s stereotyping, which is what I was doing. We were talking about race and stereotyping on another thread and another member of this site called me out by telling me everybody is guilty of stereotyping, so I’m not hiding it. I doubt she even finished high school. With you, that just comes down to a lack of exposure. If you’re not exposed to something, how would you know? The fact that you’re educated and have been exposed to Greek life, you were made aware that BGLO are Greek organizations like WGLO. You gotta remember, we started ours because we weren’t allowed in yours due to skin color during the turn of the 20th century.

To put a side note to Sen’s Revenge’s post about the low class white woman not liking an upper class black woman exerting power over her, that’s really more of a fact than an opinion. I believe that because black success isn’t what white America signed up for when enslaved Africans were brought to America. Blacks were never meant to be prosperous, or powerful, or even educated, and measures were put in place during and after slavery to ensure that they did not rise above their prescribed station. Even though America’s slave-owning whites are long dead, versions of the structures they established still linger, affecting people’s attitudes, beliefs, and expectations or prescriptions for who should be in power. That low class white woman has those same beliefs because it was passed down to her that she is “better” than the most educated black person. So that could be the very reason is made news. I don’t believe all whites share the same attitude as she does, but generally uneducated whites like her don’t know any better. Although there are some educated whites who share the same beliefs too.

Powerful questions that make ya go.. hmmm.