2015-06-24

mindstalk: (atheist)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/us/politics/supporters-of-confederate-battle-flag-watch-as-symbol-is-stripped-from-public-eye.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

'It has been quite a few years since the lost cause has appeared quite as lost as it did Tuesday. As the afternoon drew on and their retreat turned into a rout, the lingering upholders of the Confederacy watched as license plates, statues and prominently placed Confederate battle flags slipped from their reach.

“This is the beginning of communism,” said Robert Lampley, who was standing in the blazing sun in front of the South Carolina State House shortly after the legislature voted overwhelmingly to debate the current placement of the Confederate battle flag. “The South is the last bastion of liberty and independence. I know we’re going to lose eventually.”

“Our people are dying off,” he went on, before encouraging a white reporter to “keep reproducing.”'

liberty, independence, white people. One of these is not like the others.

'In Austin, Tex., a tall bearded man went into the tattoo parlor where Kelly Barr works with a request: the removal a 10-year-old tattoo of the Confederate flag.

He told Mr. Barr that he had decided to get the flag removed when he saw the pained look on a middle-age black woman at his gym on Monday.

“ ‘If South Carolina can take theirs down,’ ” Mr. Barr recalled him saying, “ ‘I can take mine down.’ ” I told him, ‘Right on.’ ”'




http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/us/politics/south-carolina-governor-nikki-r-haley-points-to-personal-reasons-not-politics-for-shift-on-confederate-flag.html

A piece on South Carolina's Sikh woman governor, and her role in the rebel flag controversy.

'When she was about 5, Ms. Haley and her sister entered a “Little Miss Bamberg” pageant, where, traditionally, a black queen and a white queen were crowned. The judges decided the sisters fit neither category, so they disqualified them.'

'In the midst of the primary, two Republicans operatives emerged, making separate and unproven accusations that they had had sexual encounters with her. Ms. Haley, who was by that time married, strongly denied the assertions.'

'A Republican state senator, Jake Knotts, also went on a radio show and called her a “raghead.”'

'But some of Ms. Haley’s positions angered many African-American leaders, including her support of a law requiring voters to show identification cards at the polls, and her refusal to expand Medicaid under President Obama’s health care law. In 2013, Ms. Haley removed a member of her re-election campaign’s advisory committee after it was revealed that the member had ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group that opposes “all efforts to mix the races,”'

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