Mike Luckovich for June 20, 2015

Your “cartoon” is quite over the top when one considers the response from the vast majority of the citizens of South Carolina. Sure, there are crazies everywhere with causes, real or imagination. Using the CSA battle flag for your style of racism is uncalled for. All lives matter to start with. Have you thought of that?

Sorry Mike, this one is going too far. You can’t say the Charleston Church shooter represents the majority of white South Carolinians any more than you can say the Unabomber represents the mainstream of the environmental movement.

I think it’s worth considering how we all react to the swastika and how we react to the Confederate flag. They are both symbols of racist regimes. The Germans seem mostly to have repudiated their racist past and they have rejected the symbol of that racist past, at least officially. Is the Confederate flag in the same category? If not, why not? What does it mean that many white Southerners (and many in other parts of the country) fly the Confederate flag? What do they mean when they do so? What does the flag symbolize for those who fly it? Do any African Americans fly the flag? Would we be surprised to see an African American in the South fly the flag? If so, why would we be surprised?

Another polarizing debate where compromise is not possible Either side holds out for all or nothing and in the mean time the nut jobs kill people.

Don’t blame South Carolina for the recent Church murders….blame South Carolina for being South Carolina – with a Confederate attitude.

Did you actually hear Hillary say that…or did

Did you actually hear Hillary say that…or, did you only hear ABOUT it?

The Nazi flag is a historical flag, too. Should we permit that to fly?And the Confederacy stood first and foremost for slavery. Those that use it as a source of “pride” are ignorant of what it really stood for.And I grew up in the Carolinas, so I know whereof I speak…

No, the flag was specifically designed to lead the Confederate troops during the Civil War. The “state” flag looked too much like the existing Union flag. Troops got mixed up. So this design was specifically created for the purpose of oppression and slavery. All of us “haters” and “baiters” are historically correct. It should be repudiated and consigned to the archives of museums.

Read a book. *PS: It’s the ‘Third Reich’, the allegedly 1,000 year empire.

The waving of the Confederate Flag is not a pure Southern Pride symbol and can not be not also seen as racist. A flag that rose to prominence during the Civil War. “Among the 34 states in January 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, often simply called the South, grew to include eleven states, and although they claimed thirteen states and additional western territories, the Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by a foreign country. The states that remained loyal and did not declare secession were known as the Union or the North. The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_WarSo as Americans that respect the rights of all our citizens governmentsshould not fly a flag that at best be seen as only partially racist and by many of its citizens as racist. Government is supposed to represent all people. States are not still part of the Confederacy or the Union States. This does preclude peoples individual right of freedom of speech.”There is also, unsurprisingly, a divide between the opinions of white Americans and black Americans towards the meaning of the Confederate flag. Many white people (42%) believe that the flag is primarily a symbol of Southern pride, while many black people (38%) see it as being exclusively a symbol of racism, while another 28% of black Americans view it as both a symbol of racism and a symbol of Southern pride. “https://today.yougov.com/news/2013/10/17/confederate-flag/”What the Confederate flag really means to America today, according to a race historian” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/19/what-the-confederate-flag-really-means-to-america-today-according-to-a-race-historian/”Some argue that the flag is a symbol of slavery and oppression, while others insist that it is purely a matter of Southern heritage and pride. But too little of the conversation takes into account the flag’s complicated history, according to Matthew Guterl, a professor of Africana and American studies at Brown University who studies race in the aftermath of the Civil War. Given his research, which has touched frequently on the use of the Confederate flag, Guterl says that he finds it impossible to argue that it’s a neutral symbol.” ”But I also think that people invoke the flag because they want to endorse on some level, even if secretly or subconsciously, the very rationale for the Confederacy. When people say ‘heritage not hate,’ they are omitting the obvious, which is that that heritage is hate. When someone says it’s about history, well, that particular history is inseparable from hate, because it is about hate. It’s about racism, and it’s about slavery.” ”But what is far more problematic is that there is no way to separate the fact that it is on all of those flag poles and on those license plates, that it’s on t-shirts and coffee cups and other paraphernalia, precisely because it was resurrected in the 1940s and 1950s as part of a massive resistance campaign against the civil rights movement. It wouldn’t exist in our national popular culture without this moment, when African Americans fought for their equality, and the battle flag was recovered and redeployed as a symbol of opposition to it. What was once a very blatant, full-throated defense of white supremacy has now become this gesture to heritage and history that is presented as though it has nothing to do with the civil rights movement. But it has everything to do with the civil rights movement.” ”Wearing the flag or celebrating it, putting it on your car window or coffee table in your house, it’s a reminder to everyone, to every guest, to every person who sees it, black or white, that you are a stakeholder in the Confederate history of the South, and therefore the defense of slavery and racial prejudice. No one is immune to this.”

I agree with you, especially in case of the Confederate Flag. Where all other flags in South Carolina were flown at half mask because of the tragedy except the Confederate Flag. I grew up in the South. There are plenty of people that are still fighting the Civil War and think the Confederacy did not loose or have not come to terms that the Civil War is over. This is why they want to fly the Confederate flag on the grounds of South Carolina government and wrote legislation saying it can not be lowered.

The solution is simple. Boycott S Carolina and any other state that thinks it’s okay to fly a flag developed through a war of some people against the union named the United States until decency prevails and the flag is placed where it belongs – in a box in a closet.

And by the way Shadow FX has been revealed – not by me – to be a new name adopted by Harley since people ignored him under his old name. He’s just a troll looking to provoke responses – don’t feed him.

Shadow FX: As for the Hazzardites, they are the water in which the sharks of overt racism swim, to paraphrse Mao..As for “Southern Pride”, I live in the “south” (northeast Texas), and I find little to be proud of here. On the other hand, I recall that Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins and thus promoted in all our schools. When someone has nothing to be proud of, there is always ancestry.

Until we accept that ALL LIVES MATTER, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, none will to those who foment hate, whether in Ruwanda, Chicago, Miami, Iraq, Iran, New York, or Nigeria.

That flag needs replacing.

Time for this flag to be retired. It may be just a nod to history for some, but it is a symbol of slavery.

Shadow FX: Unfortunately there will always be a few Uncle Toms, but there sure are a lot fewer of them now.