Thank you, NAACP, for 100 years of activism and for carrying on the current fight against our state legislature on the Confederate flag issue.
Thank you Dr. Lonnie Randolph, Dwight James, Andrea Glover, Brenda Bines, John Matthews, and Rev. Joseph A. Darby.
Other groups should join the NAACP in standing up to our state legislature on this and other issues. Our state legislature, as run by The Red Rooster, Sen. Glenn McConnell, has too much power and not enough responsibility.
See Cindi Ross Scoppe’s recent column for her analysis of the state legislature.
“[T]he fact is that South Carolina owes its status as The Legislative State in large part to practices that are at best constitutionally suspect….”
In case you missed the news, the ACC won’t hold their baseball tournament in Myrtle Beach. Not in 2011, not in 2012, and not in 2013. Also, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will not hold their convention here in South Carolina (h/t wolfereports).
I hope that you already know that the reason that we don’t have The Palmetto Bowl is because our state legislators would rather fly the Confederate flag than have a NCAA football bowl game.
And I hope you also know that losing out on March Madness games costs our state an estimated $50 million (and counting). Our state legislators would rather fly the Confederate flag than have a March Madness basketball game.
Some people criticize the NAACP’s boycott as being like Swiss cheese — full of holes. It’s flouted often, and in big ways. But the boycott is also honored, often, in ways big and small, and every dollar counts.
Why shouldn’t our state legislators in South Carolina seek a reasonable way to end the boycott? They changed our license plates to say travel2sc.com. There’s a major initiative “We want you to stay in Columbia” that has to contend with, as Dan Cook put it:
All of us live here and we all have a pretty multifaceted understanding of where we live, but to outsiders — well, the only three things [they might know] about South Carolina are that, number one, we have a Confederate Flag flying on our State House grounds; number two, we have a state amendment against gay marriage; and number three, our governor had an affair.
People who want to promote South Carolina have to fight against our state legislature, and our state legislature has to come up with other ways to promote tourism. But our state legislature won’t even consider any reasonable solutions to the Confederate flag issue!
Why not consider reasonable solutions like H.3588?
Some people ask, ridiculously, “What more do they want?”, claiming that, after all, the 2000 compromise, “gave the NAACP what they asked for.” Garbage. The NAACP asked for the Confederate flag to be removed from anywhere that a reasonable person might consider as (1) an indication of sovereignty of the Confederacy and/or (2) a public policy message of second-class citizenship for blacks.
The 2000 compromise put the Confederate (battle) flag on a flagpole out in front of the State House, at the most prominent place on the grounds. Not in a glass case, not in bronze, not in a less prominent place, not in a historical display (although it is next to one), and not in a historical context.
It’s flying from a flagpole!!!! Where our state flag should fly!!!!!!!
What more does the NAACP want? Well, first, the question itself is ridiculous. I mean, why is our state legislature the paternalistic organization that grants favors to different groups? That’s a crazy way to think about government!
And anyway, the group that’s getting the favor is Sen. Glenn McConnell and his Confederates. The state legislature is doing them a favor, and the NAACP is merely asking the state legislature to stop playing favorites!
So again, thank you NAACP. Keep up the good work.
3 Comments
August 6, 2009 at 8:37 am
The NCAA violates its own rules by discriminating against member institutions and athletes.
It’s time for interested parties to sue the NCAA.
Make them pay for their politically correct nonsense.
August 6, 2009 at 9:03 am
The NAACP is supposedly a civil rights organization.
It should be noted that taking down or banning a flag is NOT a civil right…but a violation of a civil right.
August 6, 2009 at 11:59 am
BorderRuffian,
The NCAA is not discriminating against member institutions. The NCAA allows and encourages teams that win hosting privileges to host tournaments. All the NCAA says is that the state of South Carolina is not a suitable environment for hosting tournament games with predetermined locations. This finding by the NCAA is a finding against the state of South Carolina, not against any particular institution.
The NAACP is promoting civil rights. The NAACP says that anyone who wants to fly the Confederate flag is free to do so at their own home or at their own business. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Dr. Lonnie Randolph say that, certainly dozens, perhaps hundreds. You don’t have a civil right to force the government of SC to fly a flag that is neither SC’s state flag nor the USA’s flag. If everybody had a civil right to force the government of SC to fly flags, whoa, I can’t tell you how many flags would be flying — all the Confederate flags, and the Black Liberation flag, the flag of Mexico, Ireland, Canada, England, France, Germany, and on and on.
Regards,
Michael Rodgers