Clothing
featuring the late Bay Area rapper Mac Dre has been banned in Riverbank, Calif.
due to the slain rappers “glorification of drug use,” educational officials
told the San Jose Mercury News.Riverbank
Unified School District board members voted unanimously yesterday (Jan. 9) to
ban clothing bearing Mac Dre’s image or brand name at the district’s
only high school, Riverbank High. Mac
Dre’s clothing was added to a long list of banned names and labels that the
school district prohibits from the dress code.School
officials said Mac Dre’s popularization of the word "thizz, " which
is street slang for the drug ecstasy, was the reason the rapper’s image was banned
from the school.According
to Riverbank High’s principal Ken Geisick, none of the high school’s
students have been disciplined for having possession of or using ecstasy in the
last four years. Geisick
also told the Mercury News that images of other popular Bay-Area rappers
are still permitted on clothing. Administrators
review the school’s dress code policy every year. Other
phrases and brands on the banned include "eight ball," "Joe Camel,"
"Nor Cal," "Rolling Hard," "Sol Beer," "south
pole" "vato loco" and others.Officials
noted that many of these phrases and images are prohibited because they are affiliated
with gangs.Mac
Dre was gunned down in Kansas City, Mo., in 2004 while returning to his hotel
after a concert performance.
