Why do you think they're using the "Confederate Battle flag," specifically?

Let's talk about the Confederate flag, shall we?

In the wake of the racist hate crime in Charleston, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley apparently felt that residents of the Palmetto State weren't ready to discuss removing the Confederate flag just yet.

You know, right now, to start having policy conversations with the people of South Carolina, I understand that's what ya'll want, my job is to heal the people of this state... There will be policy discussions and you will hear me come out and talk about it. But right now, I am not doing that to the people of my state.

Apparently, this sort of flag talk is very traumatizing in South Carolina.

Eternal debutante Lindsey Graham positively got the vapors at the thought.

If at the end of the day, it is time for the people of South Carolina to reconsider that decision, it would be fine with me, but this is part of who we are.

The flag represents to some people, a Civil War, and that was the symbol of one side. To others it is a racist symbol, and it has been used in a racist way. But the problems we have today in South Carolina and across the world are not because of a movie or because of symbols, it is because of what is in peoples' hearts.

How do you go back and reconstruct America? What do you do in terms of our history?

Well, here's the thing about history, Scarlett. You aren't required to celebrate it. Particularly when it's the history of a group of people who felt they were allowed to keep other people as livestock, because those other people happened to have a darker skin.

There are things we shouldn't be proud of. Slavery is one of them.

The "heritage" argument has been around for years, and it's always been a fairly thin argument. As Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention put it:

Some would say that the Confederate Battle Flag is simply about heritage, not about hate. Singer Brad Paisley sang that his wearing a Confederate flag on his shirt was just meant to say that he was a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. Comedian Stephen Colbert quipped, "Little known fact: Jefferson Davis - HUGE Skynyrd fan."

Or, to put it another way,

And it's not like this is a big secret, either. It's literally known around the world.

And yes, that is a fact.

So let's consider not clinging to your slave-owning past, and put away the symbols of racism. Maybe it's time to move on.

Post Racial America? Hell to the No!

It started with a vile comment that I read on a post at Yahoo.com. It was the typical racist crap and I paused to give it a thumbs down vote. The screen handle was "obanana" and the person posted repeated comments featuring the n-word. 

I did a Google search of the screen name, curious as to how prolific the small-brained racist was. My search led me to a website bearing the title, www.niggermania.com. (In order to write about this site, I'm breaking my own rule and spelling out the n-word. You need to register to see all the wonders of the site. It's impossible to fully conceptualize how bad this site is without seeing it for yourself. You may sign in via my registration. User name: Lady J, password: maju2625)

The site proudly proclaims on its home page: Nigger mania is the best site for nigger jokes and facts about niggers since 2003. Please join our nigger-bashing forum too.

I know that this type of virulent hate is difficult to read. This site makes me feel physically ill; however, hate thrives best in the dark. We all know the oft repeated statement in its many variations that evil thrives when good people do nothing. I like this more precise statement by Edmund Burke: When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

This site boasts that it has thousands of members and is still growing. People make donations to fund hosting of the site. A lot of bad people,men and women, have combined on this web site. The rest of us cannot allow such hate to grow unchecked and unacknowledged. Ignoring it will not make hate go away. 

One of the site founders, Tom Shelly, insists that the site is not about hate. He's a liar. In his own words: 

Personally, I do not hate niggers at all, I just correctly understand that they are not human and treat them accordingly. They are nothing more than wild niggers running around loose and one must act accordingly around them. A hundred and fifty years or so ago, people in this country treated niggers accordingly and kept them contained and controlled. We made them useful by managing their numbers, containing them, and forcing them to work and be somewhat productive. But the natural empathy of the White man caused him to unrestrain (sic) a species of animal (niggers) largely due to the fact they they mimick (sic) humans in their behavior and dress. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, he can't be put back in and we're stuck with living around 30 million wild niggers.--Tom Shelly

This site and its partner sites represent the most insistent, total racism that I've encountered in my 57  years on this earth. I thought that by now I knew racism inside and out. However, it has taken me aback that such blatant, vile racism is freely distributed in 2012. These people are pure evil and I see no possibility for their redemption. I think that they should be isolated from the rest of us. They are an infectious disease.

The blatant lies and twisted views are disseminated across the Internet. No doubt the comment maker who sent me on my journey based his conclusions on "facts" gleaned from niggermania.com. There are parental filters that can be used with some success to prevent children from surfing porn sites but what  prevents them from being subject to the intentional indoctrination of hate sites?

What about black children? As an adult, my pulse grew more rapid and I began to feel that someone was standing on my chest as I read through this site. What about black children who stumble across sites that proclaim that they are not human and which cite to studies by Arthur Jensen featuring his declarations that blacks are inherently intellectually inferior to whites? What psychological damage is wrought by exposure to these unrelenting racist lies?

Sites such as these may make an argument for their right to exist as a first amendment issue. I suspect that they continually assert that the site is not about hate to protect themselves against a possible challenge of their 1st amendment rights based on the use of hate speech to incite violence against a protected class--race, religion, national origin, etc. I lack the skills to mount a cyber attack against the site as one of my friend suggested. Besides, it would accomplish nothing; they would still be slithering around corners fomenting racism. 

What I would like to see is a lot of attention focused on these people. Turn the spotlight on their sickness and expose them for the rotting carcasses that they really are. They are vampires; they don't feed on blood but on ethics, on morality, and everything that makes us decent. A stake through the heart isn't the only way to end a vampire; dragging them into the light will render them into a pile of dust.

So pass along the information about these sites. Tell your friends. Tell anyone who insists that the only issue with race is that black people keep playing the race card. No matter how well intentioned, burying one's head in the sand and pretending that the monster doesn't exist never works out well. To save the day, the heroine must kill the monster and destroy its lair.