Posted on 02/07/2007 7:35:32 AM PST by Rebeleye
...the Confederate battle flag that flies on the State House grounds should be removed immediately, end of story. It has as much right flying in front of our state capitol as a Nazi flag does flying in front of the modern Reichstag.
(Excerpt) Read more at free-times.com ...
Im a Southerner, were proud people and I well understand our loving affinity with the past. In fact, my family, I was told by a Charleston tour guide, was the largest slave-owning family at the time of the Civil War. So dont think you can out-heritage me on this issue, with my progenitors having lost more than anyone else as a direct result of the Emancipation Proclamation. Thats why I can say that as a state, as a people and as a region we were dead wrong then and were dead wrong now to perpetuate what is unarguably the cruelest, most shameful aspect of our states otherwise rich historical legacy.
In the 337 years since South Carolina was first settled, white people have chosen to fixate on the four worst years possible despite so many other accomplishments winning the Revolutionary War in the South and likely saving freedom for America being no small member of that list that merit respect and worthy honor.
If you want to revere history, visit the monument thats there and read about it. No one has a problem with that its OK, even for Germans, to respect their countrys WWII dead who fought under the orders of racist madmen. But there simply is no reason whatsoever to hoist a flag, Nazi, Confederate or otherwise, when for millions of people it represents slavery, torture, disenfranchisement and inhumanity. And whats worse, the only reason it was placed atop the dome by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond was to demonstrate our states refusal to integrate. Real classy move there, especially from a man who couldnt keep his zipper shut around black women. Thus, that remains the only reason its flying now. To phrase this in terms even an elected official could understand, its a flapping disgrace to our state and its citizens, and its perched on our states front porch for the world to see and judge us by. Call it heritage if you must, but I went to high school, and the people who drove around displaying the flag were not the best students in history class (nor any other class, for that matter). And when I went to college, the only place I saw the flag was adorning frat houses, which completely explains why our legislature from pages to Senators, frat boys all have remained fixated upon this symbol they believe represents their views. That the rational world has condemned the symbol as one of hate only strengthens their resolve. Its what stupid people do when backed into an intellectual corner they lash out at their accusers and hold on even more tightly (witness Sen. pro tem Glenn McConnells recent response to ESPN that there was zero chance of the issue being taken up and House Speaker Bobby Harrell both of whom are as entrenched in the good-old-boy system as you can get recently claiming the issue was permanently settled). The flag is an embarrassment, and our elected officials are embarrassments to any progress educational, economic development or otherwise our state hopes to make solely because of their own moral cowardice.
Now, with that out of the way I want to publicly chide the NAACP for its continued, misguided lobbying of the NCAA to ban all postseason play in South Carolina. Shame on you. The only people injured through both the ban you got enforced and the extended ban you proposed are those almost exclusively in your corner of the fight young black athletes, local business owners and the universities which, like no other entity in our state, endeavor constantly to change backward, regressive mindsets that fuel racial hatred and misunderstanding.
I am all for protesting the flags placement and its existence at all. But no university or college in South Carolina has the authority to move it, only the legislature. If you cant properly protest and lobby the legislature effectively, then thats your own fault. Bullying a weak, poisoned-by-political-correctness NCAA into punishing the state by denying millions to the local economy is a failure of imagination, a waste of resources and a slap in the face to your core supporters, most of whom are college graduates of some kind.
I drive past the Capitol every day and see no protesters around the flag or on the steps speaking out against it. The NAACP has time to lobby the NCAA from afar, but not, apparently, to exert constant pressure on the only institution on earth with the power to do something about it.
Boycott the businesses and law firms that key members of the legislature work for. If you want to pressure someone, make them uncomfortable and keep them that way. Every sane, logical argument already is in your corner, and yet you have not been able to generate mainstream support from those without a strong opinion about the flag.
I wonder if any members of those organizations who recommended the NCAA prohibit merit-based postseason games have the nerve to go to USC baseball coach Ray Tanner and Clemson baseball coach Jack Leggett the two coaches whose nationally ranked programs would have been most adversely affected and address their teams as to why a baseball team should pay for the legislatures spiritual bankruptcy?
Go to Harrell and McConnell, not to the NCAA. Go to the op-ed page. Go to the State House grounds every day and make sure people dont forget about the issue. Go, when the country turns its eyes on us in April and May for the presidential debates, to the media that will be here to make sure every candidate is asked about the flag.
Just leave, for Gods sake, the athletes, coaches and fans who support your goal out of the crossfire. They dont deserve it, and neither does the issue you purport to serve.
Just white people, eh?
Miles Brand is an idiot and should be fired.
Mr. Rebeleye, that was a beautiful rant. I salute you!
"Remove Flag, But Not at Expense of Black Athletes"
You know, the special ones, the ones who matter.
It will come due to the myriad of laws that have been and continue to pass that slowly and incrementally strip away our rights to practice religion in public, exercise basic freedoms, and seeks to rehabilitate us whenever we speak something that is deemed Politically InCorrect.
When that time comes, I have a feeling which flag will be used.
Very simply, there is.
For millions more, it represents no such thing. There was more to the southern culture and heritage than slavery, and who are you to define what others feel? The measure of the character and worth of individuals and groups is how they act, not how they feel.
But perhaps the culture of hate that drives this article can best be categorized by pointing out the obvious:
A few million individuals who have no sense of self worth, of community, of culture and of country, feel exactly the same way about the Stars and Stripes.
I refuse to live my life for the sole purpose of satisfying the marginal, whose only sense of power and worth is playing the eternal victim.
4 reasons why sports should be banned from academic institutions.
A good post and a good tagline.
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