Racism in America

Interesting article this morning in our local news pamphlet, the Charlotte Observer. The article concerned the ongoing controversy in South Carolina over public display, or rather display on public grounds of the Confederate flag, or other remnants of the old confederacy. What’s most fascinating to me is the thought that the citizens of South Carolina apparently haven’t had anything of which to be proud since their heydays of the 19th century. Apparently, Lincoln robbed South Carolinians of their main source of pride—the ability to hold and use slaves on their farms.
One might imagine that 145 years later, the citizens of the great state of South Carolina would have more to rally around than that last vestige of their slave-holding past, and now the most prominent symbol of racism in the land. I mean, even Germany has shed fairly completely its ties to its dreadful Nazi past. Germans now pride themselves on being productive and innovative members of a democratic nation and a leading member of the European Union.
One wonders what South Carolina might have looked like now, had Lincoln not intervened—a minor banana republic, still holding and using slaves on its tobacco farms??
How sad.
And on another front, Sarah Palin, darling of the white supremacist tea party republicans, and apparent advocate of state secessions, is being touted as a leading candidate to oppose President Obama in the 2012 election, unless she is upended by the Newtster. Mr. Gingrich, who seems not to understand the difference between US presidents and Nazi leaders, is readying himself to run for the GOP candidacy. They would make a fine combination of delusional white supremacists. Run on GOP, run on.