Freakin’ unbelievable
From: wildbill4dixie@yahoo.com
Unbelievable!? Now New Zealand is weighing in on the matter…. what next? Eskimos condemn Confederate Flag? Geez!?
Re: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10488838
To: Leonard Doyle
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/author/email.cfm?a_id=105&objectid=10488838
From: wildbill4dixie@yahoo.com
Dear Ignoramus
Stick to your own little island. You know nothing about the history of my country other than what you read in (corporate-owned) American newspapers, which, by the way, spew the same kind of screed that yours does.
For openers – probably about one third of South Carolina’s population had ancestors who fought in America’s “civil war”. The Confederate Battle flag is important to them. Don’t like it? You don’t have to. As tax paying citizens whose opinions do count for something, their feelings, their opinions, count as much as anyone else’s. They, like everyone else, are entitled to celebrate what is important to them. It is not necessary for everyone to think and act alike or for everyone to behave like lemmings. Behaving like lemmings is not what a free country is all about.
Next – the accepted figure is 4500 lynchings over an 80 year period in the South, from the end of Reconstruction to the 1960s. I won’t quibble about a difference of 200, but I will remind you that 1/3 of those lynched weren’t black. So then, 3000 black people lynched over an 80 year period? I suppose it is a shame – as much of a shame as the thousands of black on white murders which have occurred in this country since the 1960s. Perhaps you could do some research on that subject and write a column bemoaning it? Or don’t white peoples’ lives count?
Next – Pat Tillman. Was opposed in his bid for governorship by ex-Confederate general Wade Hampton, who became governor of South Carolina in 1876, with, I might add, the support of a sizable part of the black community which had become fed up with the dishonesty and travesties perpetrated by the Reconstruction governments. Wade Hampton fought under the flag that you so revile…… see below:
“Wade Hampton, Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman”, Page 191,
Wade Hampton On Suffrage
Hampton repeated his willingness “to see impartial suffrage established in the South”. He denied that Congress had a right to confer citizenship on blacks, but thought the southern states should take that step themselves. He recommended that voting requirements be the same for white and black, with “a slight educational and property qualification for all classes”
“Wade Hampton, Confederate Warrior, Conservative Statesman, Page 186,
Contents of a Speech to a Black Crowd
Why should we not be friends? Are you not southern men, as we are? Is this not your home as well as ours? Does not that glorious Southern sun above us shine alike for both of us? Did not this soil give birth to all of us? And will we not alike, when our troubles are over, sleep in that same soil?
Next – South Carolina is about one third black. Mississippi is nearly 50% black. Not unusual really – most Southern states have very large black populations. Several years ago Mississippi voted overwhelmingly to retain the confederate battle emblem in its state flag. Where was the state’s black population during that referendum? Maybe you could do some research and find out? They didn’t show up in the polling places to vote out that symbol? Could it be that it’s really not that important to them? And why would so many black folks CHOOSE to make their home in a place where they are, at least according to propagandists like yourself, hated and reviled? Maybe you could look into that? And when was the last time you heard of a black guy retiring and moving NORTH? Oh, sorry, I forgot, you’re in freakin’ New Zealand so you don’t get out much!? Think about it before you turn on your “telly” to watch “Mississippi Burning” a dozen times and then use it as research to write a column about something you know nothing about.
Finally – Jesse Jackson. Your hero worship is both nauseating and myopic. Maybe you could do some research and write a column about where his “congregation” is located? Aren’t ministers supposed to have congregations? Maybe you could arrange to have a group picture taken of a bunch of black people and then put it on the side of a milk carton under a caption which reads….MISSING. HAVE YOU SEEN JESSE’S CONGREGATION?
I suppose you won’t get the humor in that statement. After all, “you’re not from around here”.
Oh yeah, one more thing – if racial discord vanished tomorrow, what would old Jesse do for a living? My guess is he’d be shining shoes….or working for a hack newspaper like yours.
We have a saying here in America, a saying which made this country great, and a saying which, sadly, seems to be falling out of favor these days, but I’ll wheel it out of mothballs and use it anyway….
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!
Regards
Bill Vallante
Commack NY
Sons of Confederate Veterans, Camp 3000 (Associate)
Sons of Confederate Veterans, Camp 1506 (Associate)
