The debate here on Race 4 2008 on LJ’s,  Rudy Flips on the Confederate Flag? Blog between yours truly, Republius (for whom I have the greatest respect), econ grad and others, prompts this post by Mike Gamecock DeVine.Some misguided, ignorant, uninformed, and worse, i.e. politically correct free speech squelching white guilt laden liberal opinions about the issue of the display of the Confederate Flag in South Carolina and other Southern States have been expressed in LJ’s blog that must be confronted, from:

1.       My “attitude” on the issue.

2.      My position on the substance of the issue.

3.      My history on the issue.

4.     South Carolina’s history on the issue, especially that of the S.C. Congressional Black Caucus and S.C. NAACP when the flag was placed on the State House grounds

5.      State ownership of museums

6.      The slur that the Confederate flag as a “terrorist” symbol

7.      The KKK’s use of the Cross of Jesus Christ

8.      The technically racist pre se assumptions by some whites concerning the level of offense Blacks “feel” when they see the flag displayed on State House property vs. the private property of the KKK, born of ignorance

9.      Latent anti-Southern bigotry born of ignorance

10.    The refusal of some conservatives to use their brains instead of swallowing the liberal PC police line and the resulting desire to appeal to Blacks based on race and not based on conservative principles

11.    What such attitudes portend for the candidates in the race 4 2008.

The South matters. White and black southerners matter. What matters to them matters. How candidates address what matters to the South, matters, in addressing their fitness for office.

In 2000, McCain showed that the moniker of his “Express” was a crock when he flip flopped and lied about his position on the issues, and showed that “straight talk” meant saying what the MSM wanted to hear. However, as with my position on Mitt Romney (whom I ever so slightly favor), I am more concerned with where a candidate has flopped now, i.e. stands now and promises to so stand if elected than with past stands and alleged flip flops.

Let me preface my remarks with a little personal and South Carolina history:

1. Back in my early teens in the 70s many of my Caucasian peers wore Confederate Flag (CF) t-shirts as a symbol of teen rebelliousness. I did not hang with racists. Yet, I still banned CF t-shirts from my car.

2. My parents integrated Little league and Cub Scouts. My best friend (who rode the bus home with me on the school bus so as to be able to get to baseball practice) and I endured being called, respectively “whitey” and “n-word" lover” (I am white. He is Black.) I hired some of the first Black paralegals in my county.

3. The battle against racism defines my life more than any other issue.

4. I favored the removal of the CF from atop the State House dome in Columbia and its placement on the museum that is the State House grounds, as did the SC General assembly Black Caucus and SC NAACP when the legislation was passed and the removal and placement accomplished years ago.

5. The NATIONAL NAACP came out for a boycott of the state soon after the above action despite what Blacks in SC wanted, because the CF was more visible. The boycott continues to this day. Blacks in SC overwhelmingly oppose the boycott.6. Blacks in SC regularly vote for representatives that favor the display of the flag.

7. The “right” position for someone from outside the state is deference to the State for what flags it wants to fly where.

8. The imagined level of offense taken by Blacks at the viewing of confederate flags at public buildings by whites is really an insult to the intelligence of most Blacks. It is, in a word, racist per se. All humans should be as opposed to slavery, no matter their race, and are. Blacks know the difference between racists that fly it and seek to harm them and a symbol of history, a history that includes the flying of American flags over more slaves and territory than the confederacy ever had.Blacks have crosses in their homes. The Klan also appropriated the Cross.This is 2007, not 1857, 1867 or 1967.

We should not treat blacks as children.

9. pay special attention to how Blacks are treated in the Prager story.

This was my first MSM column.

Achieve King’s dream with equal treatment

Saturday, January 20, 2007 8:51 AM

Originally published January 16, 2007 in The Charlotte Observer.

Achieve King’s dream with equal treatment
Misguided liberal policies assume blacks are inferior victims
MIKE DEVINE
Special to the Observer
“Daddy, why would somebody want to shoot a preacher?”

That was a precocious little boy’s first reaction upon seeing the headline of The Spartanburg Herald announcing the assassination of the 39-year-old leader of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. No holiday cries out for a progress report more than the one President Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1983 and that
America celebrated yesterday. Where do we stand nearly 39 years after King’s death on April 4, 1968?

Brandon Woolfolk, a 23-year-old African American junior at UNC Charlotte presently working as a hotel clerk, told me last week that “One change is that back then blacks feared whites. Today, they fear other blacks.”

Dewey Tullis, a life-long educator and prominent black member of the Spartanburg County Democratic Party, told The Wall Street Journal before last fall’s election he was supporting the Republican running for South Carolina’s top education post because, “Frankly, I’m tired of seeing our young black men graduate high school without knowing how to read and write.”

One main reason for these disturbing assessments: the well-intentioned but misguided liberal policies implemented immediately after the race-based “Jim Crow” laws were abolished. New race-based laws were passed, old non-race-based laws were misinterpreted by liberal judges, and new welfare policies kicked the black father out of the house and made Uncle Sam daddy.

Character building a priorityBy contrast, King’s dream was that people be judged based, not on skin color, but rather on the content of their character. There is hope, however. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg African American Agenda conference earlier this month, whose agenda “priorities” could have been written by whites, shows that more and more blacks get it and are about the business of character building. Event organizers even invited as a featured speaker National Public Radio correspondent and Fox News commentator Juan Williams, author of “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America — and What We Can Do About It.“Now, what about Caucasians?

I became active in the Democratic Party mainly due to my disdain for the racism I saw in the 1970s. Happily, I watched most of the Republican racism melt under the weight of King’s mainstream American and Judeo-Christian moral arguments. Unhappily, I watched disturbing pathologies develop within my party and its members. Then, during my five years in Atlanta before moving to the Queen City, I experienced what I call a “conservative epiphany,” in large part due to the covertly racist behavior of fellow liberal Democrats in their treatment of blacks as inferior victim dependents and their overt disdain for the Christian faith that inspired King.

Radio talk show host Dennis Prager recently described being shown a video of people reacting to a talk show organized by a firm that specializes in analyzing such shows for their producers. Prager noticed that the carefully chosen panel included no blacks. The firm explained that in their previous experience they discovered that after a black person gave their opinion about a show, white people would rarely offer differing opinions for fear of being deemed racist. This condescending and misplaced white guilt and fear of the Political Correctness Police must end.Face down the PC crowdI don’t remember Daddy’s answer to his eldest son’s innocent inquiry some 39 years ago, but there is nothing I better remember than the way he lived his life. Dad employed the non-race-based Golden Rule found in Matthew’s Gospel as he coached some of the first racially integrated little league baseball teams in my hometown and insisted that blacks employed with him at Southern Railway be held to the same standards as whites. King based his civil rights message largely on that New Testament passage, which admonishes us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, as well as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which acknowledge equality before our Creator and require equal treatment under the law. Quite simply, whites must stop treating blacks as inferiors, and muster the courage to face down the PC crowd to make King’s dream more of a reality.

10. We should not appeal to Blacks like the democrats do, i.e. based on skin color and assumptions as to what they think based on that. It is an insult and it’s racist per se. We should appeal to Blacks EXACTLY as we appeal to Whites.

I was not always one to take up defense of the Confederacy against attacks. I have grown less ignorant over the years, and those that spew ignorant attacks on the CSA should join me. 

The CSA was fighting for its Independence on the same principles as theUSA did in 1776. I am glad they lost and that the Union was preserved.

I suspect that most of the ignorant smears on the flag is due to the KKK’s appropriation of the flag and the Cross of Christ, I might add. We can’t let microscopically small organizations force rational minds to stop thinking.

Most Black minds are operational.

It is the Left that is afraid of history and seeks to hide it. We must not insult Blacks like this. We must not close our minds in fear of the white and black PC police.