My short answer is "yes."
But the larger picture and longer answer is more complicated and nuanced. We all, and particularly us Southern white folks, need to take the time to reflect on South Carolina's long history of racial hatred and the influence of that hatred in the state's political regimes, past and present.
As the state's NAACP President said during a special presentation on WIS TV last night, "it is sad that SC is first only in secession." And no one has mentioned the influence of Sen. Strom Thurmond, Dixiecrat candidate for US President. Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 until 2003, at first as a Democrat and, after 1964, as a Republican.
I just saw the first evidence of backlash against Charleston's and SC's leaders online, as there was graffiti scrawled on a Confederate statue in downtown Charleston. A statue near The Battery memorializing Confederate defenders of the city was found vandalized Sunday with the message “Black lives matter.” It named both Mayor Joe Riley and Governor Nikki Haley in red paint.
Now I strongly disagree with the Governor, as she wept before the TV cameras after this past week's massacre at a historic AME church, but refuses to call for taking down the Battle Flag that flies on the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol building, where she served in the legislature and now presides as Governor.
From Huffington Post:
An act of terrorism unfolded on American soil last [week] when nine people were killed by a gunman at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historically black church, in Charleston, South Carolina.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) posted a noticeably defensive statement on Facebook as the details [of the Charleston shooting] unfolded...
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R), who is running for president, showed no similar confusion. “There are bad people in this world who are motivated by hate," he said in a statement after the mass murders.
That hatred was official state policy in South Carolina since before the founding of the United States and continuing until at least the 1960s. For Haley, however, South Carolina has moved beyond its racist past, in part by electing her. "But we really kind of fixed all that when you elected the first Indian-American female governor," Haley said. "When we appointed the first African-American U.S. senator, that sent a huge message."
Mike Huckabee, GOP Candidate 2016
While Lindsey Graham's quote makes him sound somewhat more enlightened than the Governor, he is not. And today to compound the GOP's lack of any true acknowlegment of the still rampant racism that contributed to the Charleston shooting, listen to what former Republican Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee said on
Meet the Press today.
"We're asking if SC is a racist state."
Huckabee also said he does not display the Confederate flag and the question of flying the flag outside the state Capitol building is a states' rights issue.
Only a Southern racist (who also happens to be a Baptist minister) could think this is a "states' rights issue." That is the fallback "issue" segregationists use--just as SC did to justify rebelllion leading to a Civil War. The Washington Post explained this well:
First dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why The South seceded. [Myth #1]The South seceded over states’ rights: Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery...Other seceding states echoed South Carolina.
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. “
Joe Riley, Mayor of City of Charleston
While I strongly disagree with Haley, Huckabee, and the GOP leadership, not so with the Democratic Mayor of Charleston for 40 years, Joseph Riley, who is retiring. Riley is often credited with the revival of the City following its devastation caused by Hurricane Hugo.
Mayor Riley has also often reached out to the African American Community in his city.
When honored by the Democrats in his area in April, Riley, though, took his remarks in a different direction:
Speakers, including U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, heaped praise, as they honored Riley and his storied career.
Living up to his reputation as a leader with boundless energy and enthusiasm, the longtime mayor mostly wanted to look forward to perhaps his greatest yet-to-be-finished project: a campaign for a new African American Museum in Charleston.
“I’ve been working on it 15 years. I’m a slow worker,” Riley said to laughs.
Riley said to the media after the shootings at Emmanuel AME Church that this incident was the most difficult event in all his 40 years as mayor. In a
CNN interview today he compared the public reaction to that when President John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
Mayor Riley pushed to create a fund to aid the families of the shooting victims. Mayor Joe Riley has lived up to his reputation for both strong leadership and as someone who works to end racism in his city.
5:53 PM PT: From Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)
Current South Carolina law may require 2/3 vote to remove the Confederate Battle flag but legislators could change that law with a simply majority. #takeitdown
Mon Jun 22, 2015 at 9:42 AM PT: from The Charleston Post and Courier @postandcourier
#Charleston Mayor Riley and @NorthCharleston @MayorSummey among officials calling for #ConfederateFlag removal.
In ongoing Press Conference in N. Charleston now.
Mon Jun 22, 2015 at 11:53 AM PT: Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) has scheduled a 4:00pm Press Conference, apparently in response to pressure from state and local officials including the state's Chamber of Commerce and Charleston leaders.
Also the President of the University of South Carolina made an official statement calling for the flag to be removed. From the State nespaper in Columbia: President Pastides joined in renewed arguments for the removal of the battle flag that have spread across South Carolina and the nation in the days following the shooting.
“Is there not some other place for the Confederate flag?” Pastides asked. “Is there not a place that would unify our people rather than divide our people? That would even better facilitate the respect for the soldiers who died defending their homeland by those who wish to honor them?”
“Of course, there is such a place,” Pastides said. “I ask our state leaders who have the authority to address that question to find that place and to move the flag from its current location in front of our seat of government where laws are made, where leadership dwells, to that better place.”
The flag was taken down in 2000 from the Capitol dome, where it had flown since 1962. A hard-fought compromise resulted in its relocation to behind a monument to Confederate dead at the intersection of Gervais and Main streets, arguably one of the state’s the most prominent intersections.
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/...
Mon Jun 22, 2015 at 12:14 PM PT: From NBCNews article Monday:
"Take away Mr. Roof's symbol of misguided idea of racial superiority and bigotry. Take it away from him and all like him and give the front of our state Capitol equally and fairly to every citizen of South Carolina," [Mayor Joe Riley] said.
Rev. Nelson B. Rivers III, a National Action Network and NAACP official, called for the flag to come down before Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, who was a state senator, lies in state on Wednesday. He was the pastor of Emanuel AME and one of the nine victims of Wednesday's shooting.
Read more at http://www.nbcnews.com/...