Did any of y’all catch us on the radio this morning? What did you think?
I thought Mike did great — far more knowledgeable and focused than I was. And Andy did a good job of lining up phone-in guests — Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Scarborough, Jeff Greenfield.
If you missed it, and still want to listen, here it is.
Beyond that, if you haven’t shared your thoughts on the debate itself, here’s another opportunity to do so.
Thanks to the flag,
we’ve got Nazis on our steps
By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
HERE IS HOW one decent, earnest, sensible South Carolinian responded when I asked what he thought should be done about the Confederate flag flying on the State House grounds:
“On the flag, it’s such a tough issue. I do think there’s some wisdom in the old adage: ‘The best thing about a compromise is that nobody’s happy.’ …. I’d hate to have a renewed flag debate suck all the political oxygen out of the state. I’m afraid that could happen, and there are many issues that need/require attention. So… my instinct would be not to revisit the issue at this time.”
To which I impatiently reply, What political oxygen?
What exactly are we getting accomplished in South Carolina these days? What are we doing to catch up to the rest of the country? We compromise on compromises until we accomplish nothing — witness the DOT “reform” staggering its pitiful way through the General Assembly. If we can’t even reform that, what can we do in this state?
I’m sick of compromises. You know what the compromise on the flag brought us? Nazis, who believe, because of that flag, that we’re their kind of people.
I have video on my blog (the address is below; please go check it out) of American Nazis standing on our State House steps and congratulating white South Carolinians for having the “guts” to fly that flag and tell anybody who doesn’t like it, especially those whiny black people, to go to hell. They are very happy with the compromise. Before, the flag was a little hard to see up on the dome. Now, as one speaker says in the video, it’s “in your face,” and the Nazis are loving it.
One thing you have to hand to those pathetic losers who paraded around in silly costumes “Sieg Heiling” to beat the band on our state’s front porch Saturday: They just go ahead and say things that most South Carolinians won’t say out loud.
Personally — and I hope you won’t think less of me for saying this — I’ve always kind of hated Nazis. Until this past weekend, that seemed like a fairly pointless emotion, sort of like hating Phoenicians. But it was sincerely felt. Neo-Confederates have their way of living in the past; this was mine. I felt that I had been born too late to fight the one thing that got my blood boiling more than anything.
And yet there I was Saturday, surrounded by marching, shouting, racist, Jew-hating, uniformed jackbooted Brownshirts — and I had not the slightest urge to shoot any of them, except with my little Canon digital camera. I had a new urge, a powerful need to share what I was seeing with the world — particularly with my fellow South Carolinians, whose insistence upon flying that flag is what brought these guys out of their sad little holes of rejection all over this vast nation. They thought they were finally at home.
“Look at the flag, guys!” said one as they marched under it, thrilled at having his fantasy come true. He had never expected to see such a thing on public, government-mandated display. He was like a pimple-faced guy who’d never had a date, suddenly presented with the most gorgeous woman he’d every dreamed of, naked and willing. The situation was positively pornographic.
He had evidently never felt so welcome before. This was obviously a place that loved and valued white people. Oh, springtime for Hitler!
He was pathetic. They were all pathetic. Needy, too. Their messages of racial hatred and division were interspersed with plaintive entreaties to onlookers (the white gentiles, of course) to join them, accept them, see them as brave and praiseworthy.
I guess Hitler was sort of pathetic, too, seen in isolation — all those silly, over-the-top gestures at the podium. It was when you saw the thousands of perfect, ordered rows of mad followers willing to do anything he said that he succeeded in terrifying beyond imagination.
John Taylor Bowles, the Nazi “presidential candidate” who spoke at the rally Saturday, is no Hitler. No oratorical panache at all. He looked like what he was — a pudgy, middle-aged, mild-voiced notary public who just happened to have a few extreme ideas about people who didn’t look like the kind of Master Race that he wanted to see himself as part of. (His Web site describes him as “a devoted fun loving father of three daughters” and claims membership in the AARP.)
Sure, he’s one little whacko surrounded by two or three dozen “re-enactors” who like to play dress-up. But is he really that alone, that aberrant? How unusual is it today to hear indignant native whites talk about illegal immigrants the way he did?
Bowles was so ordinary, so banal, so nonthreatening. He had no army of storm troopers before him that I could see. But as far as he was concerned, he did have an army. He was there because he thought he could see two or three million white South Carolinians who were very receptive to a message like his. What else was he to gather from the presence of that flag?
One of the speakers said they would be back next year, and the year after that. They liked it here. Maybe we could do something to make them feel a little less welcome. Can you think of anything? I can.
See and hear Nazis praise South Carolina for flying the Confederate flag at http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/04/confederate_fla_1.html.
Everybody thinks the flag’s an issue
except those who can act on it
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
‘I JUST WANTED to touch base with you and let you know I enjoyed your editorials this morning,” said the phone message. “You don’t have to call me back, but read ’em and thought you did a great job. Thanks.”
Pretty routine, except that it was from a Republican S.C. House member, Ted Pitts — my own representative, as it happens — and the column and editorial were asserting the need to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds.
Assuming this wasn’t just constituent service, I called to ask why he liked them. He was a little vague, saying “it’s a very interesting issue” with “an interesting dynamic,” but not taking a position.
I think he was feeling a little odd because after he had called me, he had found that he was about the only person in the State House who wanted to talk about the subject at all.
“I just walked around and said, ‘Are we gonna talk about this?’ and to a man, there was just no interest,” he said. “There just seemed to be no appetite around here, from African-American members” or anyone else.
“They don’t think it’s an issue right now.”
But apathy has always been the Legislature’s way on the flag issue. Contrary to popular impression, it did not spend the 1990s (before Mr. Pitts was elected) discussing the issue — everyone else did. The apathy was even apparent during the all-too-brief debate in 2000 that left the flag in our faces, although it was removed from its position of false sovereignty.
If the House hadn’t been in such an all-fired hurry, lawmakers could have dealt with the issue once and for all. A lot of people from all over the political spectrum were pushing them to get something done, and some of the main advocates — such as the S.C. Chamber of Commerce — believed that the put-it-behind-the-monument approach qualified as “something.”
So they did that, quickly. If the House had discussed the issue more than one day, a proposal to strike the flag for good might have had a chance, but the leadership wasn’t willing.
If you ask lawmakers about the flag, they’re aghast: Why ask them, of all people? Yet thanks to a law passed by the Legislature in 1995 (in response to an abortive attempt by then-Gov. David Beasley to exercise some leadership), only the Legislature can do anything with the flag. But they don’t even think it’s an issue.
USC football coach Steve Spurrier thinks it’s an issue, but what does he know? All he knows is that the flag should not be there, and that it projects an absurdly and unnecessarily negative image of our state to the entire world.
I heard from other people who don’t know any more than the old ball coach.
One said,
“I am one million percent behind you on the flag issue…. We should not be putting down anybody, just like your column says, we should just be doing it because it’s the right thing to do. I’m born, bred South Carolina, go back generations … but I could care less. I do miss ‘Dixie,’ now, it did make my skin crawl, but the flag doesn’t mean a damn’ thing… I think you’ll be surprised at the momentum can get going now. Good job.”
As for e-mails, there was a problem: The special [email protected] address I had set up malfunctioned for the first two days. But during that time, 39 people were determined enough to look up my personal address. Thirty were for taking the flag down; only nine seemed opposed to our message in any way — and a couple of those were fairly indirect in saying so. Not all, of course, were so shy:
“You know as well as I that this is not about the Confederate flag, it is about blacks — period! If removing that flag from the Statehouse grounds would cure the 70+% illegitimacy rate, children having children, the over 50% dropout rate and the substantial crime and incarceration rate within the black community, I would say remove it now but it will not and you and Spurrier know it!… You are simply using the flag issue as a diversion from the real issues I mentioned above.”
More typical is this one:
“I grew up in this state and I am proud to be from here, but I am embarrassed by that flag and the people who support it. I travel all over the country for my work and every time someone asks me where I am from and I say SC, they bring up the flag. I have to defend myself and my state by saying not all of us are backwards and ignorant…. It is an insult to the troops fighting for our freedom today…. I will say it as plainly as I can: It is un-American to support the flag and what it stands for.”
As of midday Friday, my blog had received 253 comments on the subject since Mr. Spurrier’s remarks. Few were vague.
Rep. Pitts remains sort of, kind of uncommitted. “I feel kind of like an outsider looking in on this,” he said — which sounded odd for one of the 170 insiders who have the power to act on the issue. He explained: “It’s an issue that means very little to me — and, I think, to my generation.” Mr. Pitts is 35.
“Our state shouldn’t promote anything that offends a large block of its people,” Mr. Pitts said, in his strongest statement one way or the other. “In 2007, we’ve got a lot of other issues to talk about, but why can’t we talk about this?”
“It’s almost like we’re hiding from the issue.” I would have added that it’s exactly like it, but he was on a roll. “Let’s defend why it’s still flying there” if lawmakers believe it’s justified.
“But let’s not just not talk about it.”
If you’d like to let Mr. Pitts know that it’s an issue to you, let him know. Or better, let your own representatives know.
Find out how to reach your representatives here and your senators here. If you don’t know who represents you, check here.
How do you write about Nazis?
That very question is so out there, so absurd, so
anachronistic, that’s it’s hard for me to write any other way than in
the facetious tone I used in previous posts on the subject.
But that doesn’t seem appropriate. And yet I can’t react with the urge to violence that the Nazis of old inspire. I can’t even work up the indignation that seemed to inform the protesters who were there to shout back at them. The spectacle was just so grotesquely ridiculous.
But irony isn’t the right response, still less amusement. Because behind their game of dress-up was the ugly fact that Columbia, South Carolina looked like a hospitable place to them. That presents us with a certain challenge.
For the last hour or so, I wrote about the implications of that. I had intended to post it here, but it ended up being as long as a column, yet pretty uneven. I decided to save it as a column, to look at it again on Monday, and if I can whip it into shape, run it on Tuesday or Wednesday. It I decide it’s just to lame for print in the light of day, I’ll come back and post it here.
In the end, though, what do you say about Nazis in front of you on a magnificent spring day right here in Columbia, SC, in the 21st century. Today. Springtime for Hitler — Mel Brooks was making fun of this stuff forty years ago.
But it’s not funny, is it?
OK, here’s the video. We have two clips from the Nazi rally today.
The first is the National Socialist Movement presidential candidate, John Taylor Bowles, explaining why he
is "South Carolina’s only presidential candidate" — he defends our flying of the Confederate flag on our State House grounds.
The second speaker was a young rip-snorter, but I failed to catch his name. Anyway, he was really proud of us South Carolinians for the way we stick up for white power by flying that flag — and he taunted blacks and us whites who wanted it down by pointing out that thanks to the compromise of 2000 that Glenn McConnell is so proud of, it’s now "IN YOUR FACE!"
Which, of course, it is.
Just in case you didn’t suspect that this post and this one might be connected, I received an e-mail from a friendly correspondent saying the following:
I am planning on coming up to watch the silliness of the NAZI’s on Saturday. I am waiting on a call from a close friend of mind (with) C-Span. They are thinking seriously about covering it in light of all that has happened with Spurrier.
I don’t know whether that’s true, but whether C-SPAN is interested or not, it might be interesting to see what kinds of flags appear at the rally Saturday. I mean, aside from the usual swastika sort.
You can generally count, in my trade, on hearing more from people who are mad at you than from those who agree. People who are ticked off pick up the phone or send a e-mail; those who agree just tell you if they happen to run into you personally.
Things are running the other way on the confederate flag issue.
I came back from being out of the office late this afternoon, and my voicemail was full. There were only six message, and only the last three were about the flag. But here’s what’s weird about that: All three were from people who agree that we should remove the flag (although one prefers Mayor Riley’s approach). They were all nice, which is just plain odd on this issue.
But catching up on e-mail, I got a greater shock: Of those on this subject, 30 people want to take the flag down, and only nine disagree — including this one. And that’s giving the pro-flag position the benefit of the doubt — three of the nine didn’t actually say keep it up, but you could catch their drift. An example:
The flag should have never been removed from its place atop of the capital to start with.I believe if these people that dont want it on the grounds would pack there bags and leave the state we would be better off, its all hertiage and not hate or a race issue and as long as we bow down to these people our state will suffer, so if you dont like it here theres two options go back to your yankee state or too the bannana boat you came over here on.
By contrast, the 30 were clear and emphatic. An example:
I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate you for trying to help with this. I love this state so much but am so embarrassed about the flag being where it is. It is so hurtful to so many.
I have just retired from 30 plus years in Human Resources so let me know what I can do to be helpful with this cause.
My grandmother was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy but she would be so sad to see that we are causing hurt to others. Let’s get it down!
It will probably swing back the other way. Usually, when we write about the flag, we start getting angry mail from the neo-Confederates several days after the piece appears. Apparently, few of them read newspapers, and I’m guessing they communicate with each other via couriers on horseback. At least, that’s how long it tends to take.
But for now, I’m encouraged by the trend.
Expect to hear something in the next few days about a public effort to try to get the flag down. It’s either get started in the next few days, or forget about it until next year, with the Legislature set to shut down the first week of June. It might not be until next week, though, since the first elected official to express an interest was Mayor Bob, and he’s out of the country until Friday.
(Watch for lawmakers to say, "Why are you bringing this up at the last minute?" As if it hadn’t been there since 1962, and as if we hadn’t been writing about it over and over since at least 1994 — which is the earliest I can vouch for.)
Tomorrow, we’ll have our first editorial since the Spurrier remarks, and a column by me, on the editorial page. We’ll also have an op-ed piece related to the subject by Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, which I just received a few minutes ago.
Mayor Joe has an idea very similar to the one I posted from city forester Carroll Williamson. Here’s an excerpt:
By my count, if there was a flag representing the government for each war that South Carolinians have fought in, there would be 11 in addition to the Confederate Flag. What a beautiful sight this new monument would be in front of our State Capitol. Even more important, what a wonderful unifying and hallowed place this would become, a place where every South Carolinian who fought and died for our state and our country would be remembered forever. These 12 flags could easily fit inside this grassy rectangle with space on either side of the walkway for future wars. While we hope and pray that these wars will not occur, history tells us that they will.
It’s also similar to an idea John Courson was floating back in 2000, which I referred to in my column on the day the flag came off the dome.
Mayor Bob Coble paused en route to Deutschland to post these thoughts on my recent post on the flag issue:
Brad, I am on a plane from Atlanta to Frankfurt for an economic
development mission with S.C. Commerce. (This email address will reach
me on my blackberry until Thursday). One focus of the trip is fuel
cells. Neil McLean of Engenuity is also on the trip. I quickly read
your blog about the flag, and responded, before we left Atlanta.It seems that a number of factors have converged that warrant another
concerted effort to move the flag to an appropriate location.
- South Carolina and Columbia really are entering the knowledge
economy. The State’s hydrogen series two weeks ago, the Horizon and
Discovery Buildings actually coming
out of the ground, the hiring of
John Parks as the Innovista’s executive director, and the announcement
of Innovista’s first tenant, Duck Creek, all confirm that the
potential for success is real. The Confederate flag represents the
antithesis of these efforts, and is always the first or second question
about what kind of place South Carolina really is.- The Presidential Primaries are enormous opportunities to
re-introduce South Carolina and Columbia to the nation. Columbia is
doing a Presidential Primary Committee to present our positive message
to the national media. (I will be personally standing at our kiosk at
the airport). In reality the purpose of this effort is to present an
alternate view to the confederate flag. What a perfect time to try to
just move the flag. The eyes of the nation, for good or bad, would be
on us as we try.- The Don Imus matter is causing the nation to review the issues of
race, sexism etc. Why shouldn’t the appropriateness of the flag on the
Statehouse grounds be reviewed as well.- The statement of Coach Spurrier adds a new perspective to the
debate. The story by Joe Persons online said that Spurrier was not
trying to be a politician and that the flag was not impacting
recruiting. He just wanted South Carolina to do better and be more
progressive. That is powerful.
I agree with you. We should form an organization and move forward now. Maybe just call a meeting and see who shows up.
I think we should do just that. I’m going to try to get started on that Monday.
"It would make us a more progressive, better state, I think, if the flag was removed. But I’m not going to go on any big campaign to have it removed. That’s not my position."
— Steve Spurrier
Well, it is my position, and the big campaign starts now. Or rather, resumes now. My own campaign in that regard began in 1994 when I joined the editorial board. Hundreds of editorials and columns later (I lost count around 200; the total is likely closer to three), reinforced in the latter years by Warren Bolton, the flag came down from its position of false sovereignty atop the dome.
Not to say we can take credit. We just kept the issue out there; it was a broad spectrum of South Carolinians stepping forward and speaking up for common sense and decency that moved the flag. It would have been gone for good from the grounds, too, but for the Legislature’s habitual reluctance to act wisely.
Here’s what I wrote on the day it came down. Clearly, my intent was to keep working on the problem. My hope was to achieve something like what former House Speaker Bob Sheheen had tried to promote on the House floor — a small bronze plaque saying that here the flag once flew. You know, treat history as history rather than trying to repeat the worst bits of it.
But once the momentum of that push settled down, and most of the parties who made it happened went home feeling more or less satisfied that they had at least accomplished something, the relative quiet was filled by the ineffective and counterproductive NAACP boycott, and the visceral reaction to it. I’ve written about the need to bring the flag down a number of times since then, and so has Warren. But it’s always been in the context of that useless conflict. We had to say, "Pay no attention to that group making all the noise; let’s move the flag because we know it’s the right thing to do." But up to now, we might as well have been shouting at a stone wall.
Why? Because the NAACP was the only organization out there making any news on the subject, largely because news coverage is attracted, unfortunately, to conflict. But as I’ve written before, and mark this, the flag will never come down in reaction to a NATIONAL interest group that promotes the advancement of a segment of society defined by skin color — any skin color. That just won’t happen. Nor should it. South Carolina has to decide to do this thing itself because it wants to, because it has grown to the point that it can put such things behind it. Otherwise, nothing is accomplished.
What we need is what we had in 2000 — a coalition of South Carolinians of all colors and persuasions working to drag our state out of the 19th century, through the 20th and into the 21st, all in one smooth motion. A positive, many-sided coalition rather than a negative monolith, one that can make enough sensible noise to drown out the talk about a boycott that in any event has had no appreciable effect on anything, other than to tick off enough people to make positive movement impossible.
Here’s the big secret that I’ve also disclosed before: Most South Carolinians either want to move on past the flag, or they don’t care. The numbers who actively want the thing flying there are a minority. But they are maniacally passionate, and politicians — particularly Republican politicians, and Republicans run the Legislature — fear them. Why did we not move all the way to a real solution of the problem in 2000? Because Mr. Sheheen’s successor didn’t even want to discuss it; he wanted to move the lame Senate "compromise" through the House in a single day and wash his hands of the taint. It’s not that David Wilkins cared about keep the flag flying; he didn’t. But he needed some of the Republicans who did in order to keep his power as speaker, and feared their ire.
So let’s get the momentum back. Let the coach do football, and the rest of us do the politics. Here’s what I propose:
Let’s start a new organization, today, called "South Carolinians for the Advancement of All South Carolinians." Our aim will be to make the Legislature hear the voice of the majority of people of all colors in our state, who are sick and tired of this farce of flying that flag on our State House grounds, and fed up with the harm it does us all — not just in terms of how the world views us, but in terms of how we see ourselves, and how we live together as a people.
Please join today. And if you’ve got a better name for the organization, let’s hear it. But it’s time to get the momentum going again, and move our state away from the most horrible time in our past, and toward a better future for us all.
All the energy spent raising that flag every day at the State House would be better spent on this kind of war memorial, one that would have meaning for all of us:
Brad,
I firmly support your move to get the flag off the state house grounds. Its value, however meaningful, pales in comparison to the negative emotions it creates.
I hate to bring up another topic in the midst of this movement, but I wanted to talk to you about how we plan to honor the Marines and soldiers from South Carolina who have died in Iraq. I am a former Marine officer and every day I wake up I thank God that I am fortunate enough to be in my own house and only concerned about unimportant things like work and domestic responsibilities. Whereas, those in Iraq are patrolling every day in hostile terrain and hoping they get to see their families back home again. I think we have a responsibility to honor those who have died to the best of our ability.
I am also the reforestation technician for the city of Columbia, which means I am in charge of all the trees that get planted in the right of way. I know a good bit about trees, so I propose we plant a tree on state grounds in memory of each serviceman or woman who has died in Iraq or Afghanistan. I can provide trees myself, or find them elsewhere. But I am willing to organize this entire effort. Since I see this as something I can do, that’s my idea, but if someone has something better, I will support that as well. We just need to do something. I have emailed the governor’s office a couple of weeks ago, but failed to get a response. What are your thoughts on this idea? I know you are probably overwhelmed with flag emails this week, but mull it over and let me know what you think. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.Sincerely,
Sounds like a promising idea to me. I told Carroll I’d put it up on the blog to see what folks think of it. So here it is.
OK, so you’ve read, along with lots of encouraging remarks, some of those ridiculous rationalizations that some otherwise decent folk use to justify continuing to fly a Confederate flag on the State House grounds. You know, Heritage not Hate, etc.
I feel obligated to inform those of you who have led sheltered lives as to one of the main reasons why the flag remains. It’s because lawmakers who would otherwise remove it fear getting messages such as the one I am about to share with you.
First I must warn you. This is something that I would never, ever put in the newspaper. We have standards in the newspaper. Nor would I mail anything like this to you. I am sharing this only so that you no longer entertain innocent thoughts about the flag or the purity of all its defenders. You may be really fond of your heritage and all that — the same heritage that I share, mind you, having had five great-great-grandfathers representing South Carolina in the War — but you must not blind yourself to the kind of evil with which you ally yourself when you insist on flying that flag.
I get anonymous messages like this frequently when we bring up the subject of the flag. Out of common decency and the love of, my yearning for, the kind of civility I keep writing about, I never share them. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. My delicacy on this point allows some of you to preserve precious illusions. But we don’t have time for such illusions any more.
This message is not only hateful, it is extremely obscene. But I’m not going to clean it up. I’m just warning you NOT to read it.
Only read it if you doubt me that ugly, hateful racial attitudes play a part in this debate. If you do doubt that, you should read on.
Again, this is highly offensive material! Do not read on if obscene words and sentiments will disturb you!
Its sad that bigots
such as yourself and the majority of your peers write for a publication known as
the state. The views expressed in your pathetic publication certainly do
not represent the views of the majority of the voters in this state, and I plan
to wage war against the purchase of your product! Perhaps when your liberal
publication is no longer in demand you can stand in the unemployment
line with the "fine" minorities you sarcasticly pretend to embrace! Hopefully
you will become impoverished to the point that you will be forced to commit
crime, therefore, being locked away in the jails and prisons with these animals
who represent the minority of the population but the majority of the criminals.
Then when they slap you around, take youe food, force you to do their
chores,like the little bitch you are mabe then you will be enlightened to your
ignorance in showing passion and empathy to the "poor" ol’ blacks, half breeds,
or what have you! You ,and those who share your views are a fucking disgrace and
should be forced to live with these sub-humans for the rest of your sickening
lives and at the end (which won’t be that long, for you will probally kill
yourselves) be ALLOWED to tell how wrong you were and apoligize to
your kids and others for forever fucking up the country and making the pure race
non-existant! Thanks asshole! Hopefully the spot in HELL you are sent to will be
full of these disease ridden criminal-minded animals who are the majority, and
then let us all know how fair you were treated !!!
It’s not signed, but the e-mail address is [email protected].
Welcome to my world. I’m sorry — sorry enough that I may think better of this before the day is out and take it down. For now, I’m just telling you that this is the sort of stuff I get, via e-mail, snail mail and phone message in connection with this subject. With me, it’s an occasional thing. With my colleague Warren Bolton, it’s much, much more frequent. Why? Well, Look at Warren. You figure it out.
Hey, let’s just get it over with
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
TOMMY MOORE was right to refuse to go to Georgia for the annual meeting of the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP. By refusing to go, he sent the message that no one who wants to lead a state should participate in a boycott intended to hurt that state.
Mark Sanford was right to go to Georgia to deliver the message he did — that if you think your boycott is going to get us any closer to moving the Confederate flag off the State House grounds, you’re deluding yourselves.
What neither man said, but what anyone who would lead South Carolina should say — and to all South Carolinians, not just the NAACP — is this:
“Yep, the NAACP should see that they’re going nowhere with this and drop it. But they probably won’t. So what you should do is ignore the boycott, and do what you would do if it didn’t exist, if it had never existed. That shouldn’t be hard; you’re ignoring it now.
“That is, you ignore it until someone says, ‘Hey, why don’t we go ahead and move this flag; it’s got no business here.’ Then a loud bunch of you start howling, ‘No, we’ll never give in to the NAACP!’ As if the NAACP were the reason to remove it. That’s what the NAACP wants everybody to think — that it’s up to them. Well, it isn’t. Never was, never will be. It’s not up to any national organization. It’s up to us, the people of South Carolina — black and white, young and old. Or at least, the sensible ones.
“We came together off and on for six years back in the ’90s to talk about getting the flag off the dome. It was a truly wonderful thing to see, as church after business group after civic organization, black and white, joined the effort. That process culminated in 2000, with a compromise that got the flag off the dome, but that created a new problem. Some think the flag came down because of this boycott, which was started right at the end of the process. But you know what I think? I think we would have come up with a better solution — a permanent solution — if the boycott hadn’t happened.
“Sure, it created an additional urgency. People who already wanted the flag down thought, ‘this is getting crazy; let’s get something done now.’ But in that atmosphere, the only kind of plan that had any chance of passing was one that did not please the NAACP. So better ideas — such as replacing the actual flag with a bronze historical plaque or such — were shoved aside, and we got a nonsolution-solution. This had the desired effect — the NAACP was mad, and stayed mad. And all of the reasonable people walked away, leaving the NAACP and the Sons of Confederate Veterans in possession of the issue.
“Well, we’ve let them have it long enough. Those State House grounds are ours, not theirs, and we have a lot of important issues that we need to come together there to solve. Hear that? Come together. We must do that, or we’ll always be last where we want to be first. A symbol such as this doesn’t bring us together; it achieves the precise opposite.
“You tell me I should be talking about more important things — education, jobs, taxes and spending, reshaping our government, the Two South Carolinas? I agree, which is why those are the things I talk about most of the time. You say the flag is a distraction? You’re right. So let’s get it out of the way. Why not just ignore it? Because if we can’t get together to agree to move past something this pointless, we’ll never solve any of the hard stuff.
“So let’s put this behind us, roll up our sleeves, and get to work.”
Neither of them said that. But someone should have. So I did.
