Trump supporters still brave enough to wear a Make America Great Again hat in public are learning there’s serious consequences for standing up for what they believe in, and they’re speaking out against their haters regardless.
Epping High School freshman Ciretta Mackenzie told Boston 25 she was reprimanded when she wore a MAGA hat and t-shirt to school last Monday for a themed “America Day,” and she thinks it’s BS.
Epping High School freshman Ciretta Mackenzie chose to wear her MAGA gear on ‘America Day’ at school. She was asked to cover up her shirt by the principal, she feels she did not violate the dress code policy and believes her rights were violated @boston25 pic.twitter.com/aPTRbjXsuY
— Julie Leonardi (@JulieLeonardiTV) April 12, 2019
“It’s just a shirt, and it only says ‘Trump: Make America Great Again.’ It doesn’t say anything like ‘build a wall,’ so I don’t get how it could be offensive, how it could be disrespectful,” Mackenzie said.
She pointed out her school’s dress code doesn’t address political clothing, and she shouldn’t be singled out because of her support for the president.
“If it said no political gear, I could understand why I was dress coded, but it didn’t say that, so I feel like I’m obligated to have my own opinion and other people can have theirs,” she said. “We don’t have to agree, that’s fine.”
The student said she agreed to cover up her shirt with a friend’s sweatshirt and took off the hat, but the attention and taunting from her classmates made for a shameful experience.
“Some kids are making (me) feel like I’m uneducated and a bad kid for believing what I want to believe and that’s not right,” Mackenzie said. “I was surprised or mad, I was just upset and embarrassed, really.”
Her father agrees, though he would prefer school officials to maintain an unbiased atmosphere rather than censor political messages.
“We don’t want politics to be totally removed from schools, it needs to be in schools,” he said. “The way they went about it was, well oh the answer to this problem was remove everything, you don’t want that.”
Superintendent Valerie McKenny told confirmed to Boston 25 that two students were asked to change their political clothing and the incident is now under investigation.
“We will take steps to remedy this situation for all parties involved and ensure that this type of situation never happens in any Epping school,” she wrote in a prepared statement.
“The Epping School Board and Epping District’s position is that this event should not ever have taken place, and we are committed to the creation of a school environment that promotes open and free thought and dialogue,” the superintendent wrote.
Less than a week after the April 8 incident, a man in Maryland was minding his own business when he was attacked by two thugs for wearing a Make American Great Again Hat while walking in his Germantown neighborhood.
Atsu Nable, a black man from the West African nation of Togo, told Fox 5 he moved to the U.S. legally in 2007 and is now a U.S. citizen. He’s supported Trump from the beginning and volunteered for his inauguration.
“I came here for freedom and I like it,” he said.
Nable said he was on a walk enjoying the pleasant weather on Saturday when two men approached him and one hit him from behind.
“I was like, ‘Why are you doing that? We don’t have to do this.’ They said, ‘No, no, no, that hat is not any good,’ and they started punching me on my head,” Nable told Fox 5.
Nable attempted to talk some sense into the two men, and tried to walk away while explaining his right to his own political views, but the men ignored his cries and repeatedly hit him until he collapsed. The men also attempted to steal his headphones and cell phone, Nable said.
Witnesses called the police, and officers located the suspects at a nearby basketball court attempting to blend in with children at the court.
Twenty-seven year old Jovan Crawford and Scott Roberson, 25, now each face multiple counts each of robbery and second-degree assault, according to the news site.
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