News-Record.com

I had to agree with what you were saying until you showed your own bias. That "Yankee Horde" you refer to represents our fellow Americans throughout the North who fought and died in the same conflict. You are no better then Leonard Pitts Jr.

Soldiers of The United States of America suffered and died to tear down your “noble banner” of slavery and treason. They where not “Yankee hordes”. They deserve respect and honor. SC started the war and Columbia got what it was begging for. Wipe your butt with your racist flag.

Mr. Oden, I am as southern as you are and I was not insulted nor outraged by Mr. Pitt's column. I just figured he had as much right to express his opinion as you or I. I mean it is not gospel and he didn't try to quote from the Bible.

Insofar as besmirching our "sister state" I can only say it does seem backwards to make lesgislation aganist cockfighting a priority over domestic violence. Don't you agree?

South Carolina being our sister state has absolutely nothing to do with your anger and outrage. Clearly you do not care for Pitts and you took two words out of a column about priorities, cockfighting over women, to get your bowels in an uproar about.

Why not get outraged about legislation to make cockfighting a felony while shelving domestic violence? It speaks volumes that you would get upset about his reference to the "confederate rag, er, flag" but not about the mistreatment and abuse directed towards women.

Bill,

Cut Leonard some slack. His forefathers were held as property by men who flew that flag. I find it natural that he doesn't hold the same warm & fuzzy feeling towards it as do you. It's been 140 years. It's time to let it go.

And not one living person today had anything to do with any of it.

To expand on what Lilly said. I was born in the north but none of my relatives fought in this war. They had not made it to this country yet. Same thing with my wife's family. I wonder how many people referred to as "Yankees" are like us. I wouldn't be suprised if it was way over 50%. Maybe it truely is time to let it go.

There are "seemingly right" practices today that'll be construed unethical by future generations. Slave owners probably thought they were entitled to the use of free labor as a trade off for the social advancement of blacks. (allowing them to live in the blessings of "whiteness" and the residue from "Manifest Destiny") This type of thinking could have been derived from the propaganda slave owners heard at the time. The government, in those days, probably paid cartoonists to depict Africans as victims of profiteering by "foreeners" (like England). Thus, slaves could not free themselves, it was the change of perspective (let's call the south all wrong for that and then steal everything that isn't nailed down) that gave them their individual rights.

Not Lilly. LOL, but I AGREE with what you said. :)
Yvonne, once again, you said it wonderfully: "Why not get outraged about legislation to make cockfighting a felony while shelving domestic violence? It speaks volumes that you would get upset about his reference to the "confederate rag, er, flag" but not about the mistreatment and abuse directed towards women." *applauding wildly*

"Cut Leonard some slack. His forefathers were held as property by men who flew that flag. "

Marshall, How do you know that? If his ancestors were brought over here from some other country, they were brought on ships flying the American Flag. Ships owned by "Yankee" business men. Not all slaves were owned by Southerners. And further more that "flag" was in use for only four years. Old Glory flew over the entire country prior to that.

Leonard would have been better off keeping his comments on the subject rather than trying to shock and offend.

My forefathers (and uncles, cousins, etc) fought and died in the Civil War. Their blood is just as red as their northern neighbors. They died under that flag. Yes, died. Dead. Never to age. Never to be father's again to their children. Interestingly enough, most of them did not own slaves. At all. Many were practically slaves themselves. They sacrificed their lives for a cause.

Whether you sit in your soft arm chair many years later and agree with that cause or not, you must admit it takes a brave soul to run towards certain death. And I think a little respect is in order.

Even though the civil war wasn't ALL about slavery, I can understand Leonard Pitts not having the proper appreciation for the lives of these soldiers. But he should have respect for the dead, period.

I don't think he'd appreciate people poking fun about his ancestors, either. In fact, I think if someone said his ancestors were just a bunch of dumb yard apes who weren't strong or smart enough to free themselves from slavery and only escaped slavery because white people fought and died for thier freedom, he might get upset.

So why is it that difficult to understand why the ancestors of these soldiers might not appreciate his comments?

Bigmouth,

IF you were referring to my comments, I was saying that slaves had no money or arms in which to change their situation. Just as we used WMD's to re-invade oil utopia, I believe freeing slaves was a cover used to rape the south and to call it something noble.

Steve,

To clarify, I wasn't referring to your comments this time. Though I am keeping my eye on you......

I was just pointing out that people tend to get upset when you mock the actions of their ancestors. Being black doesn't give you a monopoly on that.

Pitts is obsessed with race, hardly an editorial without it. That's why I quit reading his op ed.

Dan, I am surprised you dislike Leonard Pitts since he does not believe in Affirmative Action, does not approve of ebonics, believes in personal responsibility and does not let those displaying bad behavior put one over. He does not excuse blacks for negative actions any more than he excuses whites. He is truly one of the most fair-minded journalist I have read, IMO.

Out of the last 26 columns he has written only four have dealt with black issues. I would hardly call that obsessed.

Yvonne,

That is how the wingnuts on the right like to excuse their ignoring of other material that is not in line with their political thinking. I, as a progressive, read a wide array of columnists because some actually have some good things to say. I am absolutely convinced that the current crop of so-called republicans are not really republicans. They are RINOs: Republicans in Name Only. I do not see conservatism, except when used to win votes.

True conservatives would not entertain the deficits that are rising to levels never seen before. True conservatives would not allow China to buy the lion's share of our Treasury Bonds. The fact is that this administration is selling us off to the highest bidder.

I won't even talk about the stuff that most people complain about- the babies without health care and the starving grandmas, and the woefully undersupplied military, I will instead talk about the bastardization of the economy, and the truth about Social Security.

China now owns the majority of our debt. That, my friends of the right and left, is so wrong it's not even funny. The trade deficits that exist between our two nations is going to place us in a situation of being subservient to China, and in the not too distant future. We may have to turn a blind eye to China's militaristic smackdown of Taiwan should they seek independence, because China could call in their debts, and that would bankrupt us. Freedom on the march, eh? Who's paying for it?

Fact #1: Baby boomers will be retiring soon.
Fact #2: Baby Boomers have a considerable amount of money in the stock market that they will remove from the market to liquidate to live on in their retirements.
Fact #3: Wall Street is about to take a direct hit, unless something happens to bolster the monies that will be leaving.

Sounds like it might be a good time to lobby the President for that favor we did during the elections....Maybe we can get him to pitch the privatization of Social Security so that as the baby boomer money begins to leave the market, more money comes in to replace it.

But, then, what do I know? I live in Greensboro.

Jim,

It isn't that you didn't make some interesting points. But what does this have to do with Pitts' column?

As I was browsing through the May 3rd edition of the News & Record I happened upon the "From the letters blog" section in the editorials. The response by Mr. Oden first caught my eye, but what I found more interesting were the responses that he in turn recieved. It never ceases to amaze me that battle still rages on over the Confederate flag. Some like to say that it's the symbol of slavery and oppression, while others view it as a piece of our southern history. And speaking of history, I would bet that it would come as quite a shock to most to find out that from March of 1861 to May of 1863, the Confederate States of America flew a battle flag called the "Confederate Stars & Bars", which looked so much like the "Stars & Bars" of the Union troops that it caused a great deal of confusion on the battlefield. It wasn't until May 1, 1863 that a second design was adopted as that CSA Battle flag, which featured for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER, the "Southern Cross" (better known to us all as the Confederate Battle Flag" or "Rebel Flag"). You can verify this information on the website www.americancivilwar.com/south/conflag. So now that leaves us all with one last blaring question... Which flag did slavery actually exist under - The confederate battle flag of the CSA or the stars & bars of the USA? (Hint: the majority of colonists came to America as indentured slaves, so slavery was not a new practice that the South came up with.) I will be the first to say what an abomination slavery was to our country, however we must put the past in the past in order to move forward as a nation. I can only hope with the grace of God that we can learn from our past misdeeds so that we would never again make the same mistakes.