Contradiction

Some say that the city of Charleston is quite different from the rest of the state of SC when it comes to overt racism because it is overrun with Democratic Yankees that some from the upstate still to this day, sometimes call, “carpetbaggers.” I’m not too sure about all of that, but I do know that starting in 1975 during my youth, a Democratic Mayor, Joseph Riley was elected in Charleston and he had remained for forty years until he chose to retire in 2015. Mayor Riley had also at one time elected a Black police chief several years ago and I still remember when the mayor marched with me and thousands other in 2000 in an attempt to have the confederate flag removed from the Statehouse in the capital in Columbia. Starting from North Charleston, and going upwards through Summerville, Moncks Corner, and beyond there is a completely different story when it comes to race relations. In many parts of this state, racism runs rampant, but I guess that I really didn’t know that quite as much in recent years as I did until the year 2015. That was the year that racism literally slapped so many of us in this state right smack dab, in the middle of our faces. In some ways the racial strides that had been accomplished in South Carolina during the seventies and the three decades that followed seemed to have almost faded away in light of the recent events. There were so many racial situations in our state that slapped me in my face in the year of 2015 so that it became impossible to remain silent, especially as discussions began on the removal of the confederate flag. Let's continue to have discussions on how to eliminate racism in this state of contradictions and controversies that linger today as a legacy of the war starting state.