| | Issue #21.14 :: 04/01/2008 - 04/07/2008 | Ron Aiken is Wrong!
Plus: Ron Aiken is Right!
| BY FREE TIMES READERS
| In his Side Line column (March 26), Ron Aiken asks, “Why can’t we host an NCAA game?”
Because of the ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. (Note: All definitions herein are taken from Webster’s.)
“Ignorance” indicates a lack of knowledge, either in general or of a particular point. The NCAA lacks the knowledge of the Confederate Battle Flag’s true meaning. They erroneously suppose it to be a symbol of hatred.
“Bigotry”: Obstinate and unreasoning attachment to one’s own belief and opinions with intolerance of beliefs opposed to them. The NCAA has been informed several times (once by this writer personally) of the true meaning of the Confederate Battle Flag, so continuing in their erroneous belief is, by definition, obstinate and unreasoning.
“Prejudice”: Unreasonable predilection for or objection against something … an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics. The NCAA’s objection against the Confederate Battle Flag is founded upon ignorance and obstinately held in the face of information offered.
Aiken writes, “I can’t speak for the wishes of the Civil War dead.”
I can speak for the Confederate soldiers, and I do. As a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I am the designated successor of my great-grandfather.
The flag that we know as the Confederate Battle Flag was used by many Confederate military units during the War for Southern Independence (1861-1865). It was their flag, and they alone had the right to interpret its meaning. When the War was over, the Confederate soldiers formed an organization known as the United Confederate Veterans. The Confederate Battle Flag was still their Flag, and they alone had the right to interpret its meaning. In 1896, the Sons of Confederate Veterans was formed as the successor organization to the United Confederate Veterans. They alone have the right to interpret its meaning. They have interpreted its meaning, and explained (repeatedly!) that meaning — and it is not hatred, nor is it bigotry.
The Confederate Battle Flag is not the flag of the Kluxers and other malcontents of their ilk. The Confederate Battle Flag is not the flag of the NAACP. The Confederate Battle Flag is not the flag of the NCAA. The Confederate Battle Flag is not the personal flag of Mr. Ron Aiken. He does not have the right to interpret its meaning. His commentary, therefore, is out of order.
Clifton Palmer McLendon
Spring, Texas
Ron Aiken is Right!
Your column “Our $50 Million Flag: Why can’t we host an NCAA game?” is spot on (The Side Line, March 26). The Confederacy is dead, and the Confederate soldiers did not fight and die so that Sen. Glenn McConnell could make money selling bumper stickers, or whatever his business is. We should take down the Confederate flag because it should not fly where our laws are made. Our state government should not be encouraging neo-secessionist groups, and our state government should not be dividing South Carolinians against each other.
The NAACP boycott is basically a public service announcement saying, “If you spend your tourism dollars here in South Carolina, then the tax dollars you spend support people like Sen. McConnell, and if you visit here in South Carolina, then you might be accosted by neo-secessionist groups who are emboldened by our state government’s flying of the Confederate flag.”
The NCAA rulings are cut from the same cloth, pun intended: The NCAA doesn’t want to force students to come and spend their money in South Carolina, since it is likely that the students will be accosted by neo-secessionist groups.
If Sen. McConnell and the tiny pro-flag group want to insist that they love the Confederate flag because of heritage, then they can fly their own flags wherever they want. Requiring our state government to pretend that the Confederate soldiers won the war does a great disservice to the past, present and future of South Carolina. And it does a great disservice to the soldiers from South Carolina currently in harm’s way and fighting under the Stars and Stripes.
Our soldiers began fighting what’s known as the Global War on Terror after Sept. 11, 2001, which occurred after the 2000 enactment of South Carolina’s “Fly the Confederate Flag” legislation, which is often erroneously called a compromise to take down the Confederate flag. That our state government continues to fly the Confederate flag is an insult to our country and to our soldiers, who are shedding blood to try to unify the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds into an Iraqi government.
State legislators: Please pass H-3588, the bill to take down the Confederate flag. When we get H-3588 signed into law, we can respect the history, heritage, and hospitality that make South Carolina great. And then we can welcome visiting tourists and student-athletes into our beautiful places with our smiling faces.
Michael Rodgers
Columbia
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