Showing posts with label emmanuel ame church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emmanuel ame church. Show all posts

Thursday, July 9, 2015

South Carolina Votes to Remove Confederate Flag - UpDate: #ConfederateTakeDown

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General Lee Surrenders in 1865.
South Carolina GOP Surrenders in 2015

Gif by ThinkProgress Tumblr

Previous Related Posts:
Confederate Flag Lowered by Activist Bree Newsome
Conservative Heads Explode Over Confederate Controversy
Confederate Flags: Hate Gets Harder to Buy
Pressure Builds for South Carolina to Take Down the Confederate Flag
The Charleston AME Church Massacre
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UPDATE: The flag came down right on time Friday July 10th at 10 a.m.















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Original Post on Flag Debate in House

After some crazy debate in the South Carolina Legislature until one in the morning, with impassioned speeches from both Republicans and Democrats, the House finally agreed to pass the clean Senate Bill to take down the Confederate Flag on the statehouse lawn by Friday.



Today, Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill into law, and tomorrow morning both the flag and the pole are coming down!




































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Sunday, June 28, 2015

Confederate Flag Lowered by Activists in South Carolina

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Activist Bree Newsome climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina State Capitol building in Columbia on Saturday and took down the Confederate Flag. Both Newsome and fellow activist James Tyson, who waited at the bottom of the flagpole, were arrested, leading to twitter hashtags #FreeBree and #FreeJames.

With this act of Civil Disobedience, Bree Newsome has become a legend now, and the image of her climb to take down the flag has traveled around the world via social media.



From The State
Activists calling themselves “concerned citizens” said in a news release that they removed the flag about 5:30 a.m. Saturday. A woman identified by the group as “Bree” climbed the pole and pulled the flag down, the group said.
“Deciding to do what the SC Legislature has thus far neglected to do, the group took down the symbol of white supremacy that inspired the massacre, continued to fly at full mast in defiance of South Carolina’s grief, and flew in defiance of everyone working to actualize a more equitable Carolinian future,” the group said in a news release distributed to the media about 6:30 a.m.
The state Bureau of Protective Services confirmed it had arrested two people at the State House about 6:15 a.m. Those arrested were Brittany Ann Byuarim Newsome, a 30-year-old Raleigh resident, and James Ian Tyson, a 30-year-old Charlotte resident, the protective services bureau said.
They are charged with defacing state property, a misdemeanor that carries penalties of up to three years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000 or both.
Newsome was loudly reciting the 23rd Psalm as she was being arrested.



















Many were dismayed that the flag was immediately raised again, possibly because there was to be a pro-Confederate rally held later in the day.






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Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Conservative Heads Explode Over #ConfederateTakeDown

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Previous Related Posts:
Confederate Flags: Hate Gets Harder to Buy
Pressure Builds for South Carolina to Take Down the Confederate Flag
The Charleston AME Church Massacre
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Lovers of the Confederate Flag are losing their minds over the recent push to rid our country of the symbol of hate.

In a conversation with black pundit Juan Williams, Bill O'Reilly insisted the flag represents "bravery" not hate.
Transcript Via Media Matters

O'REILLY: That's a positive and I just -- got to go. You say the Confederate flag is a symbol of hate and you believe that.

JUAN WILLIAMS: That's the way I feel when I see it.

O'REILLY: Okay, okay. And absolutely 100 percent legitimate. For some other people who see it in a historical context --

WILLIAMS: What's the historical context?

O'REILLY: It represents bravery.

WILLIAMS: Oh get out of town.

O'REILLY: In war.

WILLIAMS: They put it up in anger when they were trying to mass resist the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's.

O'REILLY: You know as well as I do that it represents, to some, bravery in the Civil War because the Confederates fought hard.
But that's what it represents. You're right historically, but in their minds, that's what it represents. And in your mind it represents hate. So, and everybody should know what the two sides are believing.

O'Reilly also went nuts on a guest over Racism:

Bill O'Reilly argued that racism is not an "epidemic" in America.

"I’m saying that the world is being told by anti-American haters that we are a rank, racist society, and that is a lie," O'Reilly told Powers during the segment.

After O'Reilly turned to another guest on his show, he accused Powers of "snorting" while the guest was making a point. Powers balked at the accusation, and the two quickly began debating racism again.

While arguing over whether everyone in the U.S. acknowledges the legacy of slavery in the U.S., Powers told O’Reilly, "There are actually a lot of people in this country who are racist."

The debate then took a turn for the worse.

"I have to wonder about why you can’t see what’s happening, because most Americans are not racist," O'Reilly said. "They’re not!"

 "Really? So how many black friends do you have?" Powers asked. "How many black friends do you have?"

 O'Reilly did not appear to be pleased with Powers' question and said, "If you think most Americans are racist, I’m ashamed of you."



Fox News Hatemonger Todd Starnes wrings his hands and worries if the politically correct flag-haters will become Confederate grave robbers.









Conspiracy-Monger, Alex Jones says because some Democrats turned into "Dixiecrats" after the Civil Rights Movement, then we ought to ban the Democratic Party. Um, but the Dixiecrats turned into the Republicans who turned into the Tea Party, so . . . But he was echoed by Fox News Derp-Mistress Andrea Tantaros.







Not really, Andrea, because History.





Breitbart decided to attack The Gay Rainbow Flag, which as we know flies over every statehouse in the south. Oh wait ...





Then there's Ann Coulter who sounds more and more like Dylann Roof's wicked stepmother in her push to "white up" 'Merica.





Even the The Blaze pointed out Coulter's mistake:



Conservative pundit Bill Kristol became so hyperbolic on Twitter that people wondered if his account was a parody. In a series of nearly hysterical tweets, he compared taking down the Confederate Flag to the French Revolution, as if the guillotines were being set up outside the SC Statehouse. And probably, he should be glad this isn't really a Revolution.






















But Kristol is hardly alone. The hysteria was building yesterday as retailers dropped Confederate Flags from their merchandising.






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Monday, June 22, 2015

The Charleston AME Church Massacre

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Last Wednesday evening a white man named Dylann Roof walked into a Bible Study at Emmanuel AME Church in historic Charleston. He sat quietly for some time, appearing to listen to the religious message, before standing up and shooting nine innocent people while terrorizing the survivors with racist statements.

Later it was discovered that Dylann Roof had been planning some kind of attack for months, and had told his drinking buddies that whites needed to kill the blacks and bring back segregation. He later said he almost didn't shoot anyone at the church because they were so nice to him, but his evil purpose overcame any conscience he had (if any). But we don't have to guess at his reasons because Roof wrote an online manifesto stating his plan and why he chose that church:













A week later the sorrow still simmers across the nation, as families plan funerals and calls rise up from all sides to take down the festering symbol of racism that is the Confederate Battle Flag. But I deal with the flag controversy in a separate post. The rest of this post is about the victims and their families.






























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