So did you hear about the Atlantic Coast Conference Baseball Championship games that were supposed to take place in Myrtle Beach in 2011, 2012, and 2013? That's right, past tense - "were" supposed to take place in Myrtle Beach, only now they're taking place in Greensboro, NC. Seem that after making the announcement that the conference games were going to be held in South Carolina, the NAACP voiced their objection to the conference being held in South Carolina, and the ACC rolled over, kissed the NAACP's ass, and moved the conference to North Carolina.
And just what, you ask, is the NAACP's objection to the conferences being held in South Carolina? It's the same tired, worn-out, useless, and pitiful objection that the NAACP has voiced for the past nine years. Are you ready? Ok, here it is.
There's a Confederate Battle Flag flying on the State House grounds next to the Confederate Soldier's Monument in Columbia.
Now I ask you, is that not stupid, or what? Almost as stupid as the ACC's kowtowing to the NAACP on the subject, if you ask me.
A quick history lesson: in observance of the Centennial Celebration of the Civil War in 1961-1965, the state of South Carolina flew a Confederate Battle Flag as the third of three flags on the flagpole on the dome of the State House. The American flag was on top, followed by the South Carolina flag beneath it, and the Battle Flag below that. When the Centennial celebrations were over, instead of taking the Battle Flag down someone decided to leave it up there, and until 2000 there were three flags flying from the State House dome. In the years following, the NAACP had been raising holy hell about the flag being up there every chance they got, demanding from each governor in succession that the flag be taken down. Finally, in 2000 the state and the NAACP reached an agreement that the Battle Flag would be removed from the flagpole on the State House dome and would be flown instead on a flagpole that was to be erected next to the Confederate Soldier's Monument on the State House grounds - a monument that had been there since the early years of the 20th century, by the way. At that time, the NAACP said they were fine with that decision and would have no further objections concerning the flag.
Well, that was a lie - a year later they were at it again, this time complaining that the Confederate Battle Flag be removed from state property entirely. Fortunately, the state has pretty much ignored them and left the flag where it is. So in response, the NAACP declared a "financial boycott" of the state of South Carolina, insisting that everyone vacation somewhere else and that companies take their business somewhere else. All told, the "boycott" has been a resounding failure - tourist revenue has been up consistently for the past four years and is still going strong. So the NAACP can go pound sand on that one.
The only organization that has taken the NAACP's demands of a fiscal boycott seriously is the Atlantic Coast Conference, which has stated that no ACC tournament will be held in South Carolina as long as the NAACP raises an objection. What happened this year was that someone in the ACC thought that the NAACP was over its objections, and when they were told otherwise the conference was moved to North Carolina.
As far as I'm concerned, the ACC can go pound sand, too. They need to be more concerned with sports and less concerned with politics, especially in South Carolina.
I wasn't living in South Carolina at the time "the great flag flap" was going on, but I had at that time and still have two opinions on the matter: first, the Battle Flag really didn't have any place being flown on top of the State House dome, because the State House represents all of the people of South Carolina, and for obvious reasons the Battle Flag doesn't represent all of the people of South Carolina. So I thought the flag should have come down, and I think it's much more fitting for it to be at its present location at the Monument instead of up on the State House dome. And second, the issue of where the flag should be flown - if at all - should have been left up to the people of the state of South Carolina, and it wasn't. The matter was decided by the House and the NAACP, and one half of those parties reneged on its approval a year later.
This is the same organization that passed a resolution in 1998 that calls for the permanent, nation-wide ban of the display of the Confederate flag, no matter what. This is the same organization that supports the renaming of landmarks, schools, streets, buildings, and bridges from Southern and Confederate heroes to "civil rights heroes" such as Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. This is the same organization that wants ALL Confederate monuments dismatled and destroyed, no matter what.
This is an organization that is blindly insistent on the erasure of a part of our nation's history and the elimination of MY heritage and traditions while shoving THEIR "heritage" and "traditions" down my throat and the collective throats of the nation as a whole.
And I ain't havin' none of it!
If the leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People would be more concerned with the real issues facing black Americans today - such as black-on-black crime, the high dropout rate among blacks, the high drug useage/selling rate among blacks, and the increasing amount of blacks committing crimes - and less concerned about who flies what flag and where, everyone would be better off.
Until then, as far as I'm concerned, NAACP stands for just what the title of this little rant says - Negativism Aimed At Confederate Pride.
IHC
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