Editor: Red, white, and blue. These are our nation’s colors, are they not? Yet because people live in fear, two of these three are banned from the wardrobes of many Sonoma middle and high school students. Fear of gang activity is what drives the school boards to the making and keeping of this rule. However, what is not seen is that through this, we are giving gangs exactly what they want: we are showing them that we are afraid of them, and thus giving them power. This will only drive them to cause more trouble, in hopes of becoming more feared. In a way, the dress code helps them more than us.
Wearing red or blue does not make someone a gang member. All it means is that they are partial to that color, or just felt like wearing it. Why should students, or their parents, be forced to spend money on new clothes because half their wardrobe has been banned? Why, when the majority of them have no relations to gangs at all? Teachers have told students that the rule is a precaution in case gangs decide to invade the school and start shooting. However, it’s highly unlikely that they’re going to walk into a school and just attack random people wearing enemy colors. Chances are, they came to the school with a purpose, and will either be looking for a familiar face, or will shoot randomly, in which case it doesn’t really matter what color you are wearing.
This idea brings up another question. If students aren’t allowed to wear red or blue, why are teachers? If a gang does decide to walk in and kill everybody wearing the banned colors, it’s hard to believe teachers will somehow be exempted. So why are they free of the dress code? Is their safety somehow less important than ours? Are they just not worried about anything happening? If the latter is the case, why should we, the students, be worried ourselves?
It also stands to mention that, even with the dress code, gang members will adapt to new ways of showing their allegiances. There’ve been rumors of gangs switching from red and blue to white and black. There’s a certain way they wear their hats as well. So if the dress code was put up in hopes of obscuring the gangs and members, it won’t work for long.
If it can’t be completely abolished, perhaps a compromise can be made concerning the dress code. Perhaps the amount of red and blue allowed can be changed. Most schools say clothing can’t be dominantly red or blue; maybe the rule could be that clothing can’t be solid red or blue, that there must be at least one design of another color.
Another idea springs from high schools in Napa. At these schools, the red and blue rule extends only to certain students who are known to associate with gangs. Although it may seem to single out pupils, this method is said to work very well. The schools could try this for a maybe a month, to see how it works.
In the minds of students, the red and blue dress code helps with nothing and is seen as pointless and unnecessary. The school board should at least attempt to try one of these suggestions, for the sake of the students. We just want our colors back.
Delaney Brummé
Katlyn Adams
Sonoma
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