Category Archives: Southern Discomfort

John McCain is wrong about ONE thing…

John McCain is wrong about one issue that is of any personal importance to me: the Confederate flag. And of course the moderator in last night’s debate asked him, and only him, about it. That’s fitting, since a moderator should probe a candidate’s weak points in trying to get at the truth.

Fortunately for McCain — in terms of my vote, anyway — I don’t consider anyone’s position on that issue to be a qualification for the job of president of the United States. In fact, I’d prefer that presidential candidates stay out of the debate altogether.

Among the Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani has the right answer — to the extent that any non-South Carolinian could have the "right" answer. He says it’s a matter for South Carolinians to decide.

Indeed it is that and only that. That’s why I disagree so strongly with the NAACP’s approach — trying (without appreciable success, I might add) to get the rest of the world to FORCE the flag down by hurting South Carolina economically. Even if such a strategy worked — which it can’t, believe me — nothing would be accomplished. You’d still be left with a state perceived — and perceiving itself, sullenly, resentfully — as a place that WANTS to fly the flag, but has been forced not to.

I don’t care what happens to a piece of cloth. I live in a state that has profound political barriers to getting its act together and catching up to the rest of the country in terms of health, wealth, educational attainment, public safety, what have you. The attitudes that keep us from working together to address those issues meaningfully are closely related to the attitudes that keep that flag flying.

Only if we come together and say, "That’s not who we are anymore; we’re better than that," will we ever move forward as a people.

Sure, it would make me feel all warm and fuzzy to hear everybody — particularly people I like, such as John McCain — echoing my own personal attitudes on this and every other important issue. But it wouldn’t accomplish anything. In fact, on this issue outside voices can probably only make things worse, not better. That’s because of the xenophobia that is a corollary of the mentality that keeps the flag flying. You’ve seen the bumper stickers: "We don’t CARE how you did it up North."

John McCain’s problem is that he actually wrestled with the issue, and wrestled too hard, ending up here, there, and all over the mat on the issue. It
was an issue he did not and probably never will understand. He
shouldn’t have wrestled with it. It’s none of his business.

I don’t mean that in a "go away and shut up, John" sense. But it has nothing to do with being president of the United States. Whatever opinion
he might have on that South Carolina matter should have no impact either on what we do about the flag, or on
whether he should be nominated and elected to the White House.

On issues that do have a bearing as to whether he should be
president, I find him to be far and away the best — among either
party’s candidates. For now.

I wrote the above thoughts, in somewhat sketchier form, in response to a comment on a previous post. Here’s how one of my more thoughtful correspondents replied:

Brad,

I’m struck by your post above re: McCain and the flag

“McCain’s problem is that he actually wrestled with the issue, and
it was an issue he did not and probably never will understand. He
shouldn’t have wrestled with it. It’s none of his business.”

I find it puzzling that you would use Steve Spurrier’s uninvited
opinion on the flag as the impetus for a barrage of editorials but then
give the presidential candidates a pass on the issue.

Part of the point of primary politics is for voters to obtain a
close look at the candidates and have them take positions on local
issues. It is a very useful way to measure them, regardless of whether
the issue will ever come to them for a decision. Some of the national
issues will likely never come to them for a decision either-for
example, if the next president doesn’t appoint a Supreme Court justice,
it’s unlikely his or her opinion on abortion will have any impact.

You expect a president to have the wherewithal and decisiveness to
respond to another 9/11 attack but don’t feel they can be bothered to
be decisive about one of the most controversial issues in SC. Every
candidate should have a specific opinion (not just “it’s a state
matter”). McCain’s courage faltered in 2000 on this issue.
Unfortunately, it appears to be failing him again; I doubt he
personally believes that the flag should be anywhere on the State House
grounds given how much this issue pricked his conscience 8 years ago.
But he’s playing it safe in 2008, one of the reasons he’s a less
attractive candidate this time around.

Your willingness to accept McCain’s timidity about the flag makes me question your ability to view him objectively.

Posted by: Paul DeMarco | May 16, 2007 1:52:53 PM

As I said, Paul, Sen. McCain is clearly wrong on the issue.

As I also said, I don’t ask any candidate for president for his or her opinion about the flag. It’s irrelevant.

There are things he’s wrong about that ARE relevant — such as his willingness to keep the Bush tax cuts in place. That I have a problem with, as a voter considering who should be the next president. But I have greater problems on such relevant issues with every other candidate.

Spurrier lives in South Carolina, and is someone who — unfortunately, given that I think football is one of the least important things in the world — a lot of people in South Carolina listen to. He, like the 4 million other people in this state, has a right and an obligation to speak out as to what he wants our elected representatives to put on our State House lawn.

His comments were the first from a high-profile South Carolinian on the issue since everybody stopped talking about it in 2000. I mean, other than South Carolinians who are leaders in a NATIONAL organization — an organization which, because it was trying to use the outside world to coerce South Carolina into doing something, is the main obstacle to South Carolinians growing up on their own and putting this issue behind them.

Spurrier provided an opportunity to discuss this in another context. It was, and remains, my great hope that in the coming months, other prominent South Carolinians who are NOT trying to use a national boycott to force something that needs to happen voluntarily. If it doesn’t happen voluntarily, if South Carolina does not evolve to the point that collectively, we WANT to do this voluntarily, then absolutely nothing of value will be achieved.

Comments from Hillary Clinton or Chris Dodd or John McCain are simply not a part of that discussion, but instead a distraction. The only reason they are asked about such things is because journalists on deadline are not a terribly reflective lot. They think, "They’re in South Carolina, and this is a controversial issue in South Carolina." It never occurs to them that it’s not an issue that has anything to do with the presidency. (This is an issue I’ve written about in other contexts — it’s now become a standard mindless ritual in the media to ask the president to comment on everything, from his underwear to the Columbine shootings, when such things have nothing at all to do with the president’s duties or responsibilities.)

As for abortion — well that IS a more relevant presidential issue than the flag, but only because the flag isn’t a presidential issue at all. As you say, Paul, the president’s only involvement with abortion is nominating Supreme Court justices, because of Roe. (If NOT for Roe, it would be a more legitimate political issue, and that is what it should be. The Court should never have removed it from the political branches.)

That said, I will not cast my own vote exclusively according to a candidate’s position on abortion. It will be one of many things I consider in making my decision about a candidate, but the candidate I choose could end up being someone who disagrees with me on that one issue.

I hope at this point to vote for McCain, with whom I happen to agree on the abortion issue, among many other issues.

But among the Republicans, my distant second choice would be Giuliani. Suppose McCain is no longer in the race when the primaries roll around. I could see looking to Giuliani instead. His stance on abortion would not prevent that.

Since THAT, which is more relevant to the job, would not deter me, why would the Confederate flag issue? As I say, I’m more likely to be bothered by the tax cut stance. I don’t feel passionately about taxes the way I do about the flag, but it IS actually relevant.

I would assert that this is the objective way to look at things — reasoning them out, as opposed to going on the basis of mere passion. I could certainly be wrong about that, of course, since an individual is probably the least disinterested judge on the matter of whether he is disinterested.

Would I like it more if McCain were "right" about the flag (and "right" is saying what Giuliani says, which is that it’s a South Carolina matter)? Absolutely. Immensely. But once more, that’s more about how it would FEEL, rather than about the conclusions I reach when I THINK about candidates and try to choose between them.

How was your Confederate Memorial Day?

92 Replies

S.C. political culture
keeps flag up,
DOT unreformed

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
RECENTLY, I said state lawmakers refuse to find the time to deal with the Confederate flag’s implications for our state.
I was wrong. They’ve saved so much time by not reforming the Department of Transportation this session that they managed to take off a whole day Thursday to honor the flag and all that it stands for. They also paid state employees several million dollars to do the same.
They know just what they’re doing. They don’t declare state holidays for every failed insurrection that comes along. There’s no Stono Rebellion Day, for instance. That was when some black South Carolina slaves rose up violently to assert their right to live as they chose, and lots of people died horribly, and the rebels suffered much and gained nothing. Whereas the War Between the States was when a bunch of white South Carolina slave owners rose up violently to… OK, well, the rest of it’s just the same.
But you see, we have a Confederate Memorial Day holiday because the General Assembly had to do something for white people after it gave black folks Martin Luther King Day.
It was a tradeoff. Our leaders think in those terms. Something for you people in exchange for something for us people. The idea that Martin Luther King might be worth a nod from all of us just didn’t wash.
The Legislature’s refusal to reform the Department of Transportation is actually related. That agency is governed according to the principle of something for you people in exchange for something for us people, leaving out the needs of the state as a whole.
The power lies in the Transportation Commission. The governor appoints the chairman; the other members are chosen by legislators. Not by the Legislature as a whole: Each member represents a congressional district, and only the legislators who live in that district have a say in choosing that commissioner. Therefore the people in a position to set priorities on road-building have parochial notions of what roads need to be built — all except the chairman, who can’t vote unless there’s a tie.
So how are priorities set? Something for you people in exchange for something for us people — the balancing of narrow interests, rather than a statewide strategy.
Lawmakers as a whole aren’t even seriously considering giving up that commission. Even the idea of giving greater power over the commission to the governor — who in almost any other state would be running that executive agency outright — is utterly shocking to some of the most powerful legislative leaders.
“This Senate would rue the day that you turn that billion-dollar agency over to one person,” said Sen. John Land, who represents a rural district.
The scandal at the Transportation Department didn’t arise from former Director Elizabeth Mabry being a bad administrator. She was a bad administrator, but she was part of a system. A job for your relative, commissioner, in return for indulging the way I run my fiefdom ….
Something for you in exchange for something for me. It didn’t even have to be stated.
When I say the “Legislature” is like this, it doesn’t apply to all lawmakers — just to the decisions they make collectively.
There are some who want to fix the agency, and others who want to take down the Confederate flag. But the status quo runs right over them without breaking stride.
Sen. John Courson proposed to do away with the commission and put the governor in charge. He got support, but not enough; the idea was dropped.
After I wrote about “the Legislature” not wanting to talk about the flag recently, Rep. Chris Hart called to say he wants to talk about it, and that he and Reps. Todd Rutherford, Bakari Sellers and Terry Alexander have a bill that would take the flag down — H.3588. But it’s sat in committee since Feb. 27.
My grand unifying theory is not a simple matter of good guys and bad guys. Sen. Glenn McConnell is a champion of the monument for you, flag for me system. But he’s pushing the plan to give the governor more say over the Transportation Department.
What matters is how it comes out, after everybody votes. This legislative session will end soon. Significant reform of the Transportation Department is looking doubtful, while action on the flag is politically impossible.
Rep. Rutherford has some hope for next year on the flag, especially after recent comments from football coach Steve Spurrier, and the protest by United Methodist clergy. If that blossoms into a movement of the breadth of the one that moved the flag in 2000, H.3588 could have a chance.
But he warns that if it does start to gain support, a moribund proposal to declare a Confederate Heritage Month will likely be revived. Something for you people, something for us people.
The Transportation Department won’t be reformed until the culture changes, until the notion that there is such a thing as statewide priorities replaces the traditional balancing of the interests of narrow constituencies.
The flag won’t come down unconditionally until the notion sinks in that it’s not about whether your ancestors were slaves, or slaveholders, or neither. This is the 21st century, and the Confederacy hasn’t existed since 1865. “I’m not trying to disrespect anybody’s heritage,” Rep. Rutherford said on Confederate Memorial Day. “It just shouldn’t be there.”
That’s true no matter who your kinfolk were, and no matter what day it is in the year 2007.

Don’t think unkindly of our lawmakers

17 Replies

You may have gotten the unflattering impression that our state lawmakers refuse to find the time to deal with the Confederate flag and its implications for our state.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and I hereby apologize for having created such a scurrilous illusion.

I had intended to go over and check out the activities at the Statehouse this morning, and didn’t get away before midday. At about that time a colleague returned from that august edifice, and I asked her what was going on this afternoon, thinking I might still go.

"They’re going home," she said, looking at me rather blankly.

But this is Wednesday, I protested. They don’t go home until tomorrow.

"Tomorrow is Confederate Memorial Day," she reminded me.

Our lawmakers aren’t too busy for the flag at all, you see. They’ve been so efficient in addressing all of our state’s legitimate needs that they could take off the whole day in order to honor the flag and all that it stands for. And, oh yes, pay all those thousands of state employees not to work tomorrow, either.

So don’t think they don’t have their priorities straight or anything.

Methodist ministers

30 Replies

We were way busy last week and I failed to comment on this, but it’s never too late on a 45-year issue.

I was pleased to hear from Methodist preacher friend that he and some fellow clergy were going to pray at the Confederate flagpole, with the object of their prayers being much the same as mine:

By RODDIE A. BURRIS
rburris@thestate.com
A group of 30 to 40 people prayed
and held Communion Tuesday on the State House
grounds in protest of the
Confederate flag flying there.
The group, led by ministers from area United Methodist churches, had Communion at the State House’s African-American monument.
Afterward,
they turned and marched 150 yards to the Confederate Soldier’s
Monument. There, the group prayed, asking that the flag be removed from
State House grounds…
“We hope that now people will start
bringing their churches down here and having service,” said the Rev.
John Wesley Culp, pastor of Virginia Wingard Memorial United Methodist
Church, on Broad River Road.

Randy and I need to bring this idea up to our pastor. Whaddaya think, Randy? With a Legislature like ours ("The protest drew little attention inside the State House as legislators
began their six-week countdown to the end of the 2007 session"), I think it would be wise for people of good will to appeal to the Higher Power.

In any case, this development was encouraging, because it was the first step beyond Coach Spurrier’s comments, in terms of assembling a coalition of mainstream forces to press our lawmakers to do the right thing — however reluctant they are even to speak of it.

I didn’t call Joe Darby names

13 Replies

Just FYI, I never called the Rev. Joe Darby an extremist, or anything else unpleasant. I like Joe Darby. Nevertheless, he felt obliged to stick up for himself on our op-ed page today, to wit:

The State’s editorial pages have been filled in recent weeks with
reactions to coach Steve Spurrier’s welcome comments on the Confederate
flag. They included columns by Brad Warthen, who supported the flag’s
removal but labeled the NAACP’s approach on the flag extreme, and Sen.
Glenn McConnell, who made the case for standing by the present flag
location and moving on.

Both
gentlemen merit a response, and I offer it as a former first vice
president of the South Carolina NAACP and one of those who drafted the
resolution for the NAACP’s interstate tourism sanctions.

It’s
your turn first, Brad — hope you don’t mind an extremist using your
first name. I’d remind you that school desegregation, voting rights and
civil rights laws didn’t just spring into being because America’s
powers that be suddenly said, “Hey, I see something unjust, let’s fix
it!” We acted as a nation in the 1960s only when organizations like the
NAACP took aggressive action, ranging from lawsuits to civil
disobedience, to demand equity. They weren’t called “extremists” back
then, but “outside agitators.” History shows that we only change and do
the right thing when we’re compelled to act and have no choice, and
that’s true in the case of the Confederate flag.

Well, I haven’t used the word "extremist" lately in this context, but I think this is what he was referring to:

… But up to now, we might as well have been shouting at a stone wall.
The NAACP and its opponents were the only ones out there making any
news on the subject, largely because news coverage is attracted,
unfortunately, to conflict.

The extremes did such a great job of
hijacking this issue, it’s like they got together and worked it out
ahead of time between them. The rest of us are trapped in this comedy
of the absurd, with the entire country laughing at us. (Have you ever
heard of anything more pathetic than the city of Columbia spending
$15,000 in a ridiculously doomed effort to get people covering the
presidential primaries here to ignore the flag? We make ourselves into
a freak show, and we think they’re going to ignore it? Come on!)

By the way, this is our editorial position on the NAACP’s stance, in case you missed it.

There’s nothing extreme about the NAACP’s position on the flag. But its approach to doing something about it polarizes the issue in a way that makes any kind of positive action extremely unlikely.

Anyway, I would never want to see the flag come down because our state felt FORCED to do it, even if that were possible. If we don’t grow to the point that we are unified in WANTING to take it down, then nothing is really accomplished.

People keep saying that there are many more important issues to be writing about — education, economic development, etc. To which I can only say, Duh. Why do you think we write about those things, day in and day out?

But the flag is worth writing about, too, because the very attitudes and detachment from reality that keep it up there also keep us from dealing meaningfully with the challenges that keep us last where we should be first. But we have to make the decision to move beyond that self-destructive mindset ourselves. Nobody can make us do it; that’s a logical contradiction.

Rev. Darby compares the NAACP’s coercive posture on the flag (or rather, attempted coercive posture, since the boycott is a bust) to marches and boycotts back in the civil rights era, when it was necessary to make courageous stands against laws that denied black people the right to vote, the right to a good job, a right to be treated equally.

But there’s a big difference. When you have a concrete obstacle such as a law that says if your skin is this color, you can’t cross this line, then whatever means you use to remove that law, you’ve had a positive effect. A barrier removed is a barrier removed, however you get there.

But the flag itself, as a concrete object, doesn’t matter. It is, as some who want to dismiss the issue, just a piece of cloth. This is about the attitude that keeps the flag flying. We have to change that. If you get rid of the flag and the attitude is unchanged, all you’ve done is hide the attitude, which will continue to poison and confound all our best efforts to achieve consensus on addressing education, economic development, public health, etc.

Personally, I believe most of us have indeed grown beyond that attitude. But our Legislature won’t recognize that. Hence my speaking up on the flag, and encouraging others to do the same — somebody besides the obsessed types who always speak up. You know, the extremists.

Why don’t these guys just leave a comment?

32 Replies

Just to put it where it should be — on the blog — I share this bit of fan e-mail:

Re: http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/04/i_get_lectured_.html

Mr. Warthen

First, I suggest you seek
professional help and get your Nazi fetish fixed. Listening to you whine about
how you are so pi**ed off because you weren’t born in time to go fight them
makes me want to gag. http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/04/column_on_the_n.html

The WWII generation accomplished the
defeat of the Nazis without the likes of you – in short, they didn’t need you
and they probably wouldn’t have wanted you either. You, running around the
Nazi’s demonstration, snapping photos, etc, gave them exactly what they were
looking for – ATTENTION! Congratulations on helping them achieve their own
version of “15 minutes of fame”.

Second – if you are implying, and I
believe, like many others of your ilk, you are, that the Confederacy was
anything like Nazi Germany, then use your pen and superior historical intellect
to explain EXACLTY how this is so. If you can’t, (and I know you can’t), then
shut up, because, from where I sit, a country which tells its opponent and the
world, “All we want is to be left alone”, is a far cry from one which sends its
armies across its borders and steamrolls over anyone who gets in their way. Oh,
by the way, in looking at the photos of the Nazis demonstrating, I do see a
confederate flag. But, I also see at least one 50-star U.S. flag.

Third – in reading one of your other
blog entries, I see you once again lambasted the SCV because they issued a press
release condemning the Nazi’s use of the Confederate flag.

http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/04/scv_pay_no_atte.html

Of course, had the SCV remained
silent, you would have condemned them for doing so anyway. I guess it’s a case
of “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”, right? I think it’s quite clear
from all your ranting that you simply want them and others like them to sit
down, shut up or go away.

But I had to laugh when you got so
upset about the guy who said he’d like to see you stuck in prison with those
whom you seek to ingratiate. http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/04/confederate_fla.html

Your “Oh I’m so offended” attitude,
coupled with your moaning about the lack of civility on your blog and in the
world in general, were hysterical. I have seen and heard many Confederate flag
critics, but I have to say, you are one of the most over-the-top, intolerant
people I’ve ever encountered. Your intolerance of those who don’t share your
opinion, coupled with your reaction to how other people treat you, remind me of
the schoolyard bully who just got popped in the nose and is now whining and
crying about getting picked on. Face it, you reap what you sow.

Fourth: Stop yapping about how the
flag “offends”. There is no law anywhere which states that someone else’s
history must be hidden in order to assuage the feelings of others. If you know
where such a thing is written, please point it out. And in case you haven’t
noticed, blacks have made the South their location of choice since the end of
the war, and left to their own devices, will, more often than not, get along
just fine with their fellow Southern white brethren. http://www.petersburgexpress.com/Pocahontas.html

Having read a lot of history from
original sources as well as books, I’m going to give you a history lesson on the
very subject you brought up. The Lt. Colonel was quite right, as are all the
others who write to you to tell you that you don’t know squat about history, and
that applies doubly to the issue of black support of the Confederacy. Note, I
did not say “black soldiers”, because in the technical sense at least, there
were few of those. However, if you’d like to read the stories of a couple of
them, then have a look:

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month3.phtml

Or: http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month4.phtml

Most so-called “black Confederates”
were in support roles, the most frequent of these roles being the body servant.
While not officially mustered in as soldiers, their roles were often blurred,
and their history is dotted with acts of heroism, and sometimes even combat. To
my knowledge, I have yet to hear of an instance of a white confederate soldier
complaining about a body servant going into combat.

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month5.phtml

You dare compare these men to Poles
serving in the German army? You’re not fit to shine their boots Mr. Warthog. And
unlike the Poles in the German army, these men had something to say about their
war experiences, many of them speaking of their experiences in a positive
way:

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month6.phtml

or: http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month7.phtml

And in the post war period, when the
Confederate veterans had their reunions, these black men were always welcomed by
their white comrades:

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month8.phtml

Also see: http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month10.phtml

I know it’s convenient for you and
others of your ilk to believe that the slaves waited patiently for their blue
clad liberators, but the fact of the matter is, if you read the words of many
slaves themselves, you’ll find that this was not always so. Irregardless of your
inability to see the world of the 1860s within the context of its time (and not
your time), the words of the slaves are in print for anyone to read. All you
have to do is spend 9 months reading “The Slave Narratives” : http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month11.phtml

Also see: http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month11.phtml

And: http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month13.phtml
– This is one story you definitely should read, especially since you are a
Southerner who had several ancestors in the conflict and since you seem so
intent on selling them down the river in front of the world, essentially, I
think, to try and prove what an enlightened guy you are. You could learn a lot
from this man!

Some “black Confederates” were as
over the top as their white Southern comrades:

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month14.phtml

Others were simply doing the best
they could in this life:

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month15.phtml

No, they were nothing like the Slavs
who served in the German army. I know that thought makes it easy for you to
dismiss them, but it simply isn’t so. Most Southerners, black as well as white,
have always had a strong love of home and family. Life may not have been
perfect, but the people you know are often times more reliable than the people
you don’t know, and the Union army was not always on its best behavior,
especially when it came to Southern blacks. Plenty of motivation here for a
slave to take the Southern side, I’d say:

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month16.phtml

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month17.phtml

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month18.phtml

http://www.georgiaheritagecouncil.org/site2/commentary/vallante-black-history-month19.phtml

Or how about this – from the history
of your own state?

“We have been told of successful
outrages of this unmentionable character being practiced upon women dwelling in
the suburbs. Many are understood to have taken place in remote country
settlements and two cases are described where young negresses were brutally
forced by the wretches and afterwards murdered – one of them being thrust, when
half dead, head down, into a mud puddle, and there held until she was
suffocated. But this must suffice. The shocking details should not now be made,
but that we need, for the sake of truth and humanity, to put on record, in the
fullest types and columns, the horrid deeds of these marauders upon all that is
pure and precisions – all that is sweet and innocent – all that is good, gentle,
gracious, dear and enobling – within the regards of white and Christian
civilization. And yet we should grossly err if, while showing forbearance of the
Yankees in respect to our white women, we should convey to any innocent reader
the notion that they exhibited a like forbearance in the case of the black. The
poor negroes were terribly victimized by their brutal assailants, many of them,
besides the instance mentioned, being left in a condition little short of death.
Regiments, in successive relays, subjected scores of these poor women to the
torture of their embraces, and – but we dare not farther pursue the subject – it
is one of such loathing and horror. There are some horrors which the historian
dare not pursue – which the painter dare not delineate. They both drop the
curtain over crimes which humanity bleeds to contemplate.”

“A City Laid Waste”, William Gilmore
Simms, Page 90

I really don’t expect to change you
or enlighten you. If this history lesson sticks a pin in your inflated ego, or
makes you pout, then I’d consider my job done.

And just for the record – I see a
couple of posts about the flag being raised on the State House in order to defy
Federal integration mandates. I’ve also heard this argument in other places,
Georgia for one, and I don’t buy it. You see, I’m old enough to remember the
Civil Rights demonstrations and resistance to federally mandated integration. I
remember Southern politicians PUBLICLY and LOUDLY speaking out against Federal
attempts to enforce integration. NO ONE WAS SHY about speaking out when it came
to these matters. Those were different times. No one was afraid to speak out for
fear of ostracism. There was NO need to indulge in hidden signals or code words
or surreptitious “flag-raising”, done with a wink of the eye. And I don’t
remember one Southern politician from any state saying that they would raise the
Confederate flag on any state house anywhere in order to protest any Federal
integration laws. Go ahead, look through the records. See if you can find a
quote of one Southern politician saying that this was so. You won’t find any.

Bill
Vallante

Commack, NY

SCV Camp 3000
(Associate)

SCV Camp 1506
(Associate)

Now I’m getting lectured by "Confederates" from NY. It’s a weird world. And the one those guys live is in even weirder.

How much time do you suppose he spent on that? And WHY? I include this only because — while I personally only care about what South Carolinians think about the flag, since we’re the ones who have to decide what to do with it — I get an inordinate number of these, and they constitute part of the strangeness of this whole debate. Wannabe Confederates in Georgia, Florida, New York. It’s wild.

Ted Pitts gets “flagged”

24 Replies

Poor Ted Pitts. My House representative wasn’t in the Legislature when this issue was raging before. So he made the mistake of speaking candidly with me about the Confederate flag, and I wrote about it, and he found out how much sound and fury it can generate. I just got this letter from him:

Dear Editor,

Recently an editorial [my column of April 22] was published by Brad Warthen that
included remarks from a phone conversation he and I had regarding the
Confederate Flag. I agreed with the point he made in a column that
outsiders can not move or remove the flag and the issue will be decided by South
Carolinians. There was an impression given to some that I was leading a charge
to take down the Flag from behind the Confederate monument which is not the
case.

I am elected to discuss, develop opinions and try
to improve things in our State. This includes education, healthcare, economic
development and anything the people of South Carolina want their elected
representatives to deal with. This list currently includes the Confederate flag
that flies in front of the Statehouse. Some say I should avoid the topic all
together but that is not what I feel I was elected to do. I have always found
the dynamics of the flag topic to be very interesting and never really felt like
I had a dog in that fight.

Since Mr. Warthen’s editorial I have gotten a crash
course on the Flag, the Confederate Monument and the tremendous efforts that
were undertaken to arrive at a compromise. I have spoken to constituents,
legislators past and present, people of all races, business interests, long-time
South Carolinians and new residents of our state about the Flag and will
continue to do so.

The Confederate Monument is one of many on the
statehouse grounds including an African-American monument that was built as a
result of the compromise. I was not a member of the General Assembly when the
flag came off the dome and out of the Senate and House Chambers; but as a South
Carolinian I supported moving the Flag and now as a member of the SC House I
support honoring the compromise.

Sincerely,

Ted Pitts

Weird, but good, flag news

17 Replies

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.

Confederate Flag: The Ugly Underbelly

76 Replies

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 Cdavidcatoe@aol.com.

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.

Confederate Radio

70 Replies

THAT drew you in, didn’t it? And welcome to all our neo-Confederate friends who wouldn’t be here except that they spend their days cruising the Web for stuff they can get indignant about.

Anyway, I thought I’d refer you to the streaming feed from my appearance on Public Radio this morning. The video stutters something fierce, but it you just want to listen to the audio, that works fine.

I spent most of my 10 minutes or so deconstructing David Beasley’s overly rosy memories of his short-lived attempt to get the Confederate battle flag off the dome. While you listen, you might want to read over my last written assessment of ex-Gov. Beasley’s performance on that issue:

THE STATE
THE FLAG IS STILL THERE BECAUSE THE GOVERNOR GAVE UP
Published on: 07/06/1997
Section: EDITORIAL
Edition: FINAL
Page: D2
By BRAD WARTHEN, Editorial Page Editor
There are basically two reasons why a relic of the Civil War still flies in the most ridiculous of places atop the seat of present-day South Carolina government:

* Gov. David Beasley didn’t actually try to move it elsewhere, despite his promise to do so. Oh, he started to try, but then he gave up right at the point when a person who was really trying would have rolled up his sleeves.
* Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, wanted the flag to stay right where it is. And what Glenn McConnell doesn’t want simply counts for more at the State House than what the governor does want. Sen. McConnell knows what he’s about.

There was a time, in late 1996, when it looked as if the governor was serious about this. At least he said he was, and just saying he was cost him so much political capital that he might as well have seen it through. To have kept going and succeeded would have been to achieve a measure of greatness. To have kept going and failed would at least have earned him respect.
But instead, he ran into resistance and simply gave up. He did this after getting virtually all of the state’s living former governors to stand up with him to call for moving the flag. He did this after getting hundreds of ordained ministers of all faiths to stand up and endorse this historic bid for reconciliation. He did it after creating a rift within his own political party, one that could only be healed by hard work toward a mutually agreeable solution. He did it after getting the Palmetto Business Forum and others to contribute thousands to the ad hoc organization that was going to push this whole thing from a grass-roots level. (That group now has $100,000 that was never spent).
Most of all, he did it after a poll showed that for the first time, most voters wanted to move the flag. Legislators, elected from districts that are artificially polarized by race, are a different matter. That’s why it is so incumbent upon the governor, elected by the whole state, to show leadership.
When Mr. Beasley said he was going to take this on, a lot of us praised him for his courage. But what really took gall was getting everybody stirred up on this issue and then leaving them hanging. A lot of people are never going to forget that.
Many wondered what caused the governor to suddenly take an interest in the battle flag last year: What political angle was he trying to play? Count me among those who believe it was a genuine, road-to-Damascus experience, born of true concern about race relations in this state. What puzzles me is not why he started, but why he quit. I think he was sincere. I just think he had no idea how to make it happen. It’s as if, after being struck blind, the would-be Apostle Paul had simply gone wandering off into the desert, scratching his head. The governor, a veteran of the House, was apparently taken by surprise that leaders of the lower chamber resented being the last to know about his plans – even though they were the ones who would have to do the dirty work to make it happen. They were so peeved that early in the session they passed a measure to hold a public referendum – not to ask what people thought about the compromise plan to move the flag to the State House grounds, but to force them to choose between extremes (fly the flag, yes or no).
Despite a lot of silly "that’s the end of that" rhetoric in the House, this move was widely recognized as a sort of opening gambit. It was expected that the Senate would come back with something far more reasonable, and eventually the House would agree to something that would allow everyone to save face, and perhaps even do some good for the people of the state along the way.
The House vote on the referendum was on Jan. 23. The legislative session wouldn’t end until June. And yet, as far as the governor was concerned, the effort to move the flag was over. For all practical purposes, the governor would not be heard from on this issue again – except for one time. On March 4, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley, a staunch advocate for moving the flag, announced he would not run for governor. Four days later, Gov. Beasley signaled that the flag effort was over. He had not even waited to see a bill introduced in the Senate. There were still three months left in the legislative session.
It’s not that the governor dropped off the face of the Earth. He could still be seen here and there, playing golf in charity tournaments, dressing in colorful costumes and riding motorcycles with celebrities at the beach. But somehow he never found time to bring up the flag.
The issue just never came up in the Senate – not because the Heritage Act didn’t have support. It did. And not because anyone was afraid things would get as ugly in the Senate as they had in the House. It’s just that everyone knew Glenn McConnell didn’t want the flag to move – at least, not under any terms but his own absurdly unrealistic ones. And no one wanted to be so rude as to wound the senator from Charleston’s delicate sensibilities on this matter by even bringing up the subject.
The senator is widely respected for his intimate knowledge of all things Confederate. More to the point, he knows how to get his way in the Senate better than anybody. He always knows what he wants and how to bring it about. He’s even better at stopping what others want if it doesn’t suit him. He does not shrink from pressing his point until he succeeds. For this, he is respected by many and feared by some.
Gov. Beasley, who likes to be liked, probably would not enjoy having such a reputation. Fortunately for him, after his performance on the flag, he’s in no such danger.

The Dump is Dead, or at least it WILL be

5 Replies

Every once in a while, something good happens over at the State House, and in an overwhelmingly good way. The sort of thing that keeps us trying on all the frustrating issues where it’s hard to make progress.

The House Agriculture and Environmental Affairs Committee voted 16-0 NOT to extend the life of the Barnwell "low-level" nuclear waste dump.

The bill’s sponsor, who abstained from voting in the face of such a huge defeat at the hands of his own committee (he’s the chairman), was resigned, saying this was "democracy in action."

It certainly is. And no, I don’t think the dump presented a huge health threat to South Carolinians. Folks defending it have always acted like their opposition was based in a Luddite fear of technology and scientific ignorance.

The true objection to the dump’s remaining open — mine, anyway — has been based in the fact that this state decided a couple of decades back that it no longer wanted to be seen as the country’s nuclear wastebasket (we have enough image problems without that), and the fact that a political consensus has existed all this time to get our state OUT of the business, whatever it took.

As near as I recall at the moment, we would have been out of it long ago, if not for two factors:

North Carolina kept backing away from its long-standing deal with us.
The industry has managed to get pliable politicians to keep extending the dump’s life, time and time again.

Anyway, if you want to read more about it, here’s the AP story:

AP-SC XGR NUCLEAR WASTE LANDFILL
SC legislators say no to keeping nuclear landfill open to nation
By SEANNA ADCOX
Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA,
S.C. (AP) – South Carolina lawmakers defeated a proposal Wednesday to
keep a nuclear waste landfill open to the nation’s low-level
radioactive materials from hospitals and power plants.

A House
panel voted unanimously against the plan, which would have allowed
Chem-Nuclear to stay open to the nation until 2023. State law says
starting next year, the site can accept waste only from South Carolina,
New Jersey and Connecticut.

"I think we’ve put the issue to
rest," said Rep. Billy Witherspoon, who sponsored the bill. "It’s not
an environmental issue as so many people indicated. It’s an economic
issue."

Local officials fought to keep the 235-acre site open
to the rest of the nation, saying the landfill’s taxes, fees and
high-paying jobs are vital to the local economy. The site provides
roughly 10 percent of the county’s overall budget and pumps $1 million
a year into local schools. A portion of its disposal fees also has
contributed more than $430 million for school building projects
statewide.

Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, praised the committee’s decision, saying the state needed to stick to its 2000 agreement.

"We
think this provides us with an important opportunity to move away from
economic development based on nuclear waste disposal, not just for
Barnwell but for the state as a whole," the governor said in a
statement.

Barnwell County Council Chairman Keith Sloan
compared the decision to the state telling the Charleston port, "’You
can accept freight from Japan but nowhere else.’"

"The lack of honesty and integrity and courage demonstrated with that vote is appalling," Sloan said.

Environmentalists have worried the site pollutes the underground rivers below.

The
landfill was last cited by state environmental regulators in 1983, for
improperly unloading a shipment. State officials test the soil, air,
surface and ground water four times a year, inspect shipments daily and
show up unannounced for semiannual inspections.

While tritium
has been found in groundwater, it has been far below regulatory limits,
according to the Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Sloan expected significant local budget cuts.

Ann
Timberlake, executive director of the Conservation Voters of South
Carolina, said the county was addicted to the landfill’s money.

"We didn’t view it as a vote against Barnwell but a vote for the citizens of South Carolina," she said.

Sanford vs. Floyd column

42 Replies

The difference between Sanford and Floyd

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
ONE DAY last week, I was trying to explain the politics of our state to a visitor from the West Coast. That’s not quite the proverbial visitor from Mars, but it was the best I could do in real life.
Anyway, I couched Gov. Mark Sanford’s appeal to voters in terms of white South Carolinians’ fierce aversion to anyone telling them what to do — especially the “government,” which many continue to see as an entity outside themselves, rather than something that serves their collective will. That’s the psychological (as opposed to the economic) reason why ours was the first state to secede from the Union. Our mamas and daddies can tell us what to do, but no outsider better try.
Hence the allure of a doctrinaire libertarian such as the governor, who continues to lead Sen. Tommy Moore in the polls. All the governor has to do is say he’d keep the government from taking your money away from you, and he’s got us — or enough of us to win. Few stop to think: “Wait — the government is us. We elect it, and it only spends money on what we demand.”
But here’s what’s wrong with my neat explanation: The governor is pushing a radical idea that most South Carolinians don’t want: public money going to private schools. And why is that on the agenda at all? Because rich folks from New York City and other foreign parts, folks who don’t give a rip about what happens to South Carolina one way or the other, think it would be neat to force that experiment on our state and see what happens.
It’s not just about the governor, of course. These same rich Yankee ideologues are trying to buy up part of the Legislature, and intimidate the rest of it, in order to advance their plan to use our state as their lab rabbit.
The ancestors of many Sanford supporters donned gray and butternut and started shooting to keep Northerners from telling them how to do things. But this doesn’t seem to bother many of their descendants.
So maybe it’s not about populist, anti-government rhetoric after all. If it were, the governor would post his biggest victory margin in Lexington County, but after his loss there to Oscar Lovelace in the GOP primary, he’ll be doing well to squeak by in my home county. I’m seeing a lot of “Republicans for Tommy Moore” signs on my way to and from work each day.
If it were purely about the ideology, Karen Floyd would also be leading by a big margin. She, after all, would be the governor’s go-to person on privatizing education if she becomes state superintendent of education. But while I’m sure she gets a boost from having an “R” after her name, I hear that she doesn’t enjoy the lead that Mr. Sanford apparently does.
Mrs. Floyd doesn’t have a clue about how to run schools — public or private. I really don’t think she’s even thought about it much — at least not very deeply. Her comments regarding what she would do in office are short on specifics and long on PR-speak. On the main issue that caused the governor to endorse her before the primary race even started, she is evasive to a stunning degree. If I were a voter who actually favored the governor’s voucher/tax credit plan, I wouldn’t vote for her purely because she does everything she can get away with to avoid saying she’s for it.
And if you’re not a supporter of that idea, then this is a no-brainer: Jim Rex proposes actual reforms, and demonstrates with every word that he knows enough about the system to succeed in making changes that need to be made. Mrs. Floyd, based upon her performance on the campaign trail (since her resume features no educational experience, that’s all we have to go by) would sow confusion and accomplish nothing.
Mr. Sanford, with all his faults, is better qualified to be governor than Mrs. Floyd is to be a teaching assistant, much less superintendent of education. I think voters can see that. Can’t they?

Floydgeneral

Flag column

118 Replies

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.

Good thing I’m not blogging today

18 Replies

Here are some of the items I would have posted yesterday had I been blogging. Which I’m not. ‘Cause I’m on vacation. Anyway:

We wanted to get an early start since we were heading all the way back to S.C., but while my wife was downstairs getting the free breakfast I decided to check my investments. My portfolio consists — that is, consisted — of about $1,300 worth of Knight Ridder stock. I’ve written of this brilliant move on my part before. Anyway, we ended up being delayed about half an hour, because I discovered that, instead of having been converted to cash in the sale of the company earlier this week, my investment had simply … disappeared. I had about $67 left in my e-trade account. First I got an Indian guy on the phone (he didn’t tell me his name, but if I had asked, he probably would have said it was "Steve"), who passed me to somebody else, who said I needed to talk to a "professional," who said I needed to talk to another "professional." I think the last guy I talked to said something — money, negotiable securities, something — should show up in my account in the next couple of days. I shrugged, and we got on the road. By the way, if you need investment advice, my services are available for a fee.
Before putting away the laptop, though, I checked to see if there was anyplace good to stop on the way for coffee. There was a Starbucks in Fredericksburg, a couple of hours out. (I have confessed in the past about my hateful Starbucks jones, which makes at least one of my coffee-drinking children ashamed of me.) It was at a place called "Central Park." I decided I could wait that long. You couldn’t miss Central Park, but it was very, very easy to miss something located within Central Park. I remember Alan Kahn talking about places where they had something like what he had in mind for the Village at Sandhill. This had to be one of them (I’m not in a position to check archives at the moment). This place was like the Village at Sandhill multiplied by Harbison to the power of the Mall of America — street after street of shops, strips and big boxes. The general layout was like Broadway at the Beach — winding lanes and such — but it went on and on and on. You know how terrorists dream of 72 virgins? This is what Burroughs and Chapin dream about. Only blind luck enabled me to find Starbucks in all that. I did stop and ask directions. Guess where? Where would be the last place in the world where you would be likely to find people who knew the way to a trendy-yuppie place like Starbucks? That’s right. Wal-Mart. I first asked the greeter, and when she looked up and had only one tooth in her head, my heart sank. I asked another employee, and she gave me very confident directions, but they were entirely wrong. Fortunately, I ran into it while on the way to the place she had pointed out. If was only a couple of hundred yards from Wal-Mart.
I stopped by the battlefield in Petersburg, because one of my great-great grandfathers had died there. I called my uncle from the visitors center to get him to remind me what unit he was with. He couldn’t remember, and my cousin who’s the genealogist was off someplace. But he did tell me that we had determined that great-great grandad had not died at Petersburg, but at a place called "Kingsburg." The ranger in the visitor’s center had never heard of it. So we went off to have a look at the Crater before getting back on the road.
The Crater was disappointing. I expected something about half a mile across. This wasn’t big enough to be a cellar for a small house. Ol’ Henry Pleasants didn’t use as much dynamite as Butch Cassidy, I suppose. Anyway, it was a glorious victory for South Carolinians, as the plaque I photographed (and will post when I get back to the house) attests. But it was a godawful mess. Forgive my levity. I kept saying to my wife as we drove through, looking for stop number 8, "Here we go, just breezing by, and all those men poured out their lifeblood at every one of these stops." I am capable of being sober at times.
OK, this one’s weird. Anybody ever read The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove? If you haven’t, I’m not going to describe it to you, because it will lower your opinion of my reading tastes. But it’s really a lot better than it sounds. Anyway, it’s an alternative history novel, in which the South wins the war. Instead of being the famous man who created the Crater at Petersburg, Henry Pleasants appears in it as a POW released by the Confederacy after the war, who decides to settle in Nash County, NC. His Crater idea does occur to him in the novel, but within a completely different context. Anyway, Lt. Col. Pleasants was captured at the battle of Bealeton. Not familiar with that one? That’s because it only happened in the novel, after the course of history changed from what we know. But this novel, which I’ve read more than once, kept screwing up my sense of real history as I drove through Virginia and N.C. As we drove by the exit to Bealeton, I started to tell my wife, in a professorial tone, how this was the place where … and caught myself just in time, realizing that it never actually happened. Then I saw the Crater made by the real Col. Pleasants. Then we’re driving through N.C., and we enter Nash County. Then we pass by the exit for Nashville, where Nate Caudell lived. If I had seen a sign to Rivington, I really would have freaked out. You have to have read the book to understand that last one.
How come, when you’re looking for the junction between one Interstate and another, they don’t give you a little warning so you can be on the lookout for it? Paranoid about missing my turn, I kept looking obsessively at all the signs for about 50 miles. I wanted to get off 95 and onto 40 to Wilmington. You know when the gummint finally deigned to put up a sign telling me it was coming? Two miles away. If I had been in one of those semiconscious zones you get into while driving for just two minutes, I could have missed it. I didn’t, but still. Don’t you think they should tell a guy a little earlier.
I am never going to Wilmington again for the rest of my life. All we wanted to do was turn onto 17 and head down to the Strand. Easy, right? Not around there. I turned off looking for the waterfront areas where there might be a nice seafood place. We found nothing, and then could not get back onto 17. Really. I have a great sense of direction, if nothing else, but it was useless in that place. We were lost for an hour. Once I found the bloody bridge, though, it was easy. I was so glad to get out of North Carolina, and back home. So was my wife, and she’s actually from Tennessee.
They don’t even know how to have a beach town up there in N.C. The place was totally dead, and just looked like any other Southern town. As soon as we crossed the line, we were greeted by a fireworks place, then restaurants, tacky tourist traps, all sorts of crazy, bustling traffic and an Eagles or Wings on every block. People deride the Redneck Riviera, but it’s the Beach to me, and felt as homey and welcoming as my blue recliner at home. If only I had packed those ratty old slippers of mine.

Well, that’s enough. Like I said, good thing I’m not blogging today.

I have to envy this

5 Replies

Rebcar_1
McConnell Demands to Know: Who Put Wheels on Hunley?

I took this shot behind a Lizard’s Thicket in my home county of Lexington. Now before anybody says anything disparaging, I must say that at least this guy (and I’m assuming, from the empty snuff cans encasing the antenna, that this is a guy) has a car. I’m in the condition of Ferris Bueller, who after calling Cameron’s car a "piece of ____" — causing Cameron to protest — had to explain:

It is a piece of ____. Don’t worry about it. I don’t even have a piece a ___. I have to envy yours.

My truck recently developed a terminal condition. Basically, it caught fire while I was driving it on the Interstate. I’ll tell the story once I’ve sorted out the situation in my mind. It’s been almost two weeks, and I’ve been avoiding the issue because I’ve been driving my Dad’s car while he and my Mom were out of town (which I guess is more of "Risky Business" sort of situation than a Ferris Bueller). Anyway, my folks came back today, so I’d better start thinking fast about how I’m going to get to work and stuff seeing as how we don’t have the light rail system I’ve always wanted.

By the way, that’s my poor truck sitting at the far end of the lot at the mechanic’s, next to the dumpster. I guess they put it there so none of the other vehicles would catch what it has.

As Ferris would say,

I asked for a car, I got a computer. How’s that for being born under a bad sign?

Truckalone

Y’all ain’t talkin’ right, feller

9 Replies

Why is it that when people who are not Southern try to talk or write Southern, they frequently make the gross mistake of using "y’all" as a second-person singular pronoun?

Case in point: Today’s cartoon by Australian Pat Oliphant. He’s a brilliant cartoonist, and normally pretty good with dialects. But he really fell flat with today’s piece. What? You haven’t seen it? You don’t have a print copy of the paper? Well, that’s your fault. Everyone should subscribe, so don’t whine to me.

But I’ll describe it to you: The ghost of LBJ appears at the bedside of George W. Bush. The first words out of his mouth are, "Y’all are too young to remember, li’l feller." And yes, he is addressing one person — the current president.

I see this kind of thing all the time. Am I the one who’s wrong here? Is there a variety of Southern dialect that, against all reason, uses the contraction of "you all" other than as second-person plural? (Actually, in the very worst cases, misguided Hollywood Yankees have uttered "you all" — something I never hear people say in real life — as a singular reference. I guess it’s their way of saying they assume we’re stupid, and speak in a nonsensical manner.) If there is such a place, where is it — some obscure corner of Texas?

If so, I’d have to hear it to believe it.

bradwarthen.com

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