More on the incident at Warwick in this morning’s Intell. Few new details beyond the fact that the district is apparently going to be searching kids again next week, which is probably wise.

What we’d heard, that no one has really gotten into yet, is the fact that there’s a group of kids at Warwick, some of whom apparently were part of this, who style themselves as “rednecks.” Part of that, apparently, includes the widespread use of Confederate flag regalia - stickers on car/truck windows, possibly more.

There is, as noted in comments here and the news threads on this incident, quite a lot of affection for the confederate flag in this part of Pennsylvania. I tend to think this has to do with the idea of rebellion, or rebelliousness; those who embrace the flag, particularly those who are not from the south, tend to do so specifically because of its past connotations. Racial - though that’s not the only reason. The idea of being a separatist, of thumbing your nose at - what, the government, convention, whatever you might be rebelling against (What’ve you got? asked Brando in “The Wild One.”)

Basically, you display the confederate flag because you think it makes you a badass. And maybe it does; I don’t know.

But my question is, for these kids at Warwick, at what point did being a badass start to bleed over into the sort of overt racism that bubbled up from below last week? Was it always part of it? Or was it just one or two kids - details are pretty vague still - while the others who might cop the “redneck” attitude don’t consider themselves racist, aren’t racist.

One of the strange things about kids’ attitude regarding race is that there seem to be those who embrace both black culture - in the form of hip hop, etc. - as well as racist attitudes. I won’t post links here, but yesterday I went looking for any connection between the Klan or other such groups and Lititz, and found a couple kids - identifying themselves as either recent Warwick grads or current Warwick students - who on their MySpace pages wrote of how they liked both 50 Cent and the Klan.

That’s probably all just talk - and didn’t you talk a good game when you were a kid? - but if not, I’m not sure how you square that circle. But maybe it all goes back to being a badass - in lily-white Warwick, what’s more badass, more rebellious, than embracing “gangsta” culture? If you do that and stick a confederate flag sticker on your truck, you’ll really confuse people.

Maybe none more so than yourself.