Greg Wallace
Confederate flag controversy costs South Carolina again
Posted July 6, 2009
Well, if you still, for some reason, support flying the Confederate flag on the grounds of South Carolina’s state capitol grounds, the ACC gave you another huge reason not to today, announcing that it has pulled the 2011-2013 baseball championships from Myrtle Beach amid NAACP concerns about the event being held in South Carolina.
Since 2005, the NCAA has had a ban on pre-determined postseason events in South Carolina, supported by the NAACP’s protests about the flag’s continued presence.
The ACC, according to a press release, awarded the event assuming it had the "blessings of all parties" to hold the event in South Carolina. Not so fast, said the NAACP. So instead, the tournaments – and their tourist dollars – will be moving to North Carolina (Durham in 2011 and 2013, Greensboro in 2012).
I’m not a native South Carolinian, but I’m pretty sick of this policy costing the Palmetto State tourist dollars. It’s pretty apparent to me that the flag is an outdated symbol of racism and hate – no matter what the Confederate loyalists say – and has no place on the capitol grounds of a state that, last I checked, had a 40 percent African-American population.
Get that antiquated relic off the capitol grounds, stick it where it belongs (in a museum, if you’d like) and let the tourist dollars associated with ACC and NCAA events come back into our fine state. As anyone familiar with our state’s economy knows, we need them pretty darn badly, and it’s ludicrous that such an old, divisive issue is keeping them away.
On The Web: www.independentmail.com/blogs/greg-wallace/2009/jul/06/confederate_acc/
