Brandon, Barb & Maya too!

I'm in the first few seconds of the story. I'm also in several of the papers this morning and on two news stations. Here is the one from WMBF News (NBC).

I can't seem to be able to embed it for some odd reason, but here is the link:

I was reading Maya a Winnie the Pooh book today and remembered this video that I found online from, what, 12 years ago or so?

Absolute classic!

The ACC, arguably the most prestigious baseball conference in the nation, announced a few weeks ago that Myrtle Beach would host their conference championships from 2011 through 2013. While Myrtle Beach does not have any true ties to the ACC (Clemson is about 4+ hours away and UNC is about 3 1/2 hours away), it was going to be a nice treat to see such a high level of baseball played.

While Coastal plays some of the best baseball in the nation, they are the only team in their conference that is legitimate in any way. They are arguably a Top-15 team in the nation with a conference that belongs in Division III competition.

Soon after the announcement, the ACC decided to pull the tournament out of Myrtle Beach after pressure received from the NAACP. Why? Because the NAACP boycotts South Carolina due to the fact that we still fly the Confederate Flag.



Now, I think everyone is wrong in this situation. The ACC for pulling the event due to politics, the NAACP for playing the race card to weigh in on events...but most of all, the State of South Carolina for being so archaic in their ways that they insist on flying that damn confederate flag on the capital building. The toilet paper I wipe my ass with is worth more than the cloth that flag is sewn from.

I can understand the differences in ways down here. The "four wheelers," the loud motorcycles, the belief that you must fry everything from chicken down to broccoli...hell, I can even live with those damn mullets that somehow are worn to show off your "rebelness." But I can't live with the confederate flag being hoisted atop pickup trucks, accompanied by 8 other confederate flag bumper stickers claiming that "The South will rise again!" I can't live with confederate beach towels, with confederate bikinis (stop embarrassing yourself and just take them off! :-P ), with a confederate flag flying just six houses down the street from me on my quiet, quaint little cul-de-sac.

The argument I hear is that it is a sign of their heritage. Really? Just because you are from the South and just because something is of your heritage doesn't mean you should be proud of it. Should German families fly flags of the swastika to show their pride in their German heritage? The Confederate Flag embodies all things evil and wrong in humans -- to enslave other humans out of this disgusting perception that somehow they are lesser beings than you of a lesser mind and lesser "God given rights." I mean, that IS what this nation was founded on, wasn't it? It was founded on freedoms that our people weren't allowed by the King of England. It was founded on God Given Rights, as so stated in the Declaration of Independence.

The irony of it all is that these same people that are racist, that sport the Confederate Flag with pride are the same ones that are Bible thumping right-wing ultra evangelical conservatives. Talk about the hypocrisy. Why is it that these same people that 'praise the Lord' every week in Church, that scream at the top of their lungs for their rights while watching Fox News are the same ones that support the removal of those rights for anyone but people like them?

If there is a God, if there truly is someone at the end of our lives that judges us for what good we have done and how we have sinned, I am awfully confident that he will judge these same individuals rather harshly for twisting his word, his meaning and his name around into something that might as well have been crafted by the devil.

I just wish more people had the ability to be objective about their perspectives, their opinions and their lifestyles...to take a step back and honestly ask themselves, "Is how I live and how I act and how i feel truly making the world a better place?" Because in the end that is all that matters. I don't get paid a lot at Habitat and I often am asked why I don't move into the private sector where I'd make a silly amount more than what I do here at a non-profit. The answer is very easy -- I can't make a difference there. Here, on a daily basis, I am touching lives. I won't say I 'change' them because it takes more than one person and more than one mission to do that. But I do touch lives and make them better for whatever length of time possible. My fingerprints are on a lot of things here in this community and I like that. I can't have that effect elsewhere.

But people need to smarten up a bit and realize that THEIR way isn't ever the correct way. There is no correct way. We are human and fallible. But the biggest failure of all is when we don't recognize that damage we cause for such archaic beliefs such as those that support the confederate flag.

I hope that by the time my daughter gets old enough to ask what that funny other flag is, we will have smartened up by then and already buried it along with all the life perspectives associated with it.

But...I'm not holding my breath...

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