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Hitler Youth Is Served
Cheers to the caption savant at the Park Slope Courier, who stumbled into the perfect tag for this photo of teenage douchebag Walter Petryk.
Posted by Charles Star on 11/17/2006 | Permalink
Comments
Umm, he isn't actually a Nazi. He dressed up as one for Halloween.
I don't think he was endorsing genocide any more than, say, someone dressing in a Scream mask is endorsing throat-slitting.
Posted by: Damian Chadwick | Nov 17, 2006 2:36:13 PM
Petryk certainly got the poor taste award for Halloween this year. While I don't know what his motivation was in the first place, the fact that (according to the accounts I read) he dressed up that way again a day later, defiantly defending his right to freedom of expression, makes me wonder whether he's 1) mentally stable, and 2) what his home life is like... I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm going to pull the "mom" card: my 7 year old would know better. Sure, he's entitled to freedom of expression, just as the KKK is, but dressing up as Adolf Hitler for Halloween isn't something that's cute, innocent or funny, Halloween regardless. And I'm speaking as someone who has many friends who lost relatives in the Holocaust, and who was married to someone who was a child in Holland during the war, and whose family was directly affected in rather negative ways by the Nazis. I'm about to say something that I'm sure will be interpreted as incredibly obnoxious, but I can't think of any respectable Western European child who'd be allowed out in public dressed that way - leave it to a dumbass American kid to pull a stunt like this. The people who were offended when he turned up at school dressed that way were completely correct; where the hell were his parents during all of this, and why didn't they DO something about this?
Posted by: Emily Brown | Nov 18, 2006 12:35:22 PM
No one is saying this kid was endorsing genocide - he wasn't - but he's still a douchebag. Petryk knowingly wore a costume he knew would offend people, then acted smug and self-righteous when the school told him to change, portraying himself a first amendment martyr. Give me a break. The first amendment prevents Congress from passing laws that abridge free speech; it doesn't prevent schools from employing a dress code. If it did, kids would come to school in string bikinis (where I grew up in Florida, they certainly tried), or wearing all manner of profanities as t-shirt slogans.
I think his punishment should have been wearing the costume in public (mr. free speech preferred to conceal it on the way to school). Perhaps a good swift kicking is what the boy needs.
Posted by: Carrie McLaren | Nov 18, 2006 8:29:07 PM
> I can't think of any respectable Western European child who'd be allowed out in public dressed that way
I can think of one: Prince William.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4170083.stm
Posted by: Steve Lambert | Nov 22, 2006 2:54:59 AM
It was Halloween. If the school had rules about certain types of costumes, they should have let it be known ahead of time. It's not like this kid wears this to school on regular days, or glorifies the acts of the nazis. And I believe it was Prince Harry that wore a Hitler costume, not William. All in all, the costume got attention, which was it's purpose, and people in this overly 'politically correct' society blew it out of proportion. Get over it.
Posted by: Doc | Dec 10, 2006 2:27:11 PM
