Wesley Clark took his "grits tour" to Jackson, MS, yesterday. He was asked during his speech about the Confederate flag. According to the account from AP in the Biloxi Sun-Herald (12/30/03):
Clark was interrupted early in his Jackson speech by Jim Giles, a former congressional and gubernatorial candidate, who yelled: "Do you support the Confederate flag, being a Southerner?"
Clark barely paused and said: "I'll get to that question in just a minute."
Later, Clark held an American flag and said: "I'm proud of what our country stands for. We stand for patriotism. We stand for that American flag - not the Confederate flag. This flag."
That won loud applause from the diverse crowd of whites and blacks.
This article also quotes my friend and former professor Bob McElvaine of Millsaps College, a long-time Dean supporter and also a prominent critic of neo-Confederate posturing.
The Jim Giles quoted as the Confederate heckler has a Web site RebelArmy.com, where one can participate in a discussion forum on "the issues of the day related to White politics." What the Confederate flag means to him can be inferred accurately enough from this statement of 12/06/03 which appears on his Web site:
Be clear on this essential point though. I said recently, “Of the two we suffer more from Negro-lovers than we do Negroes because without the Negro-lovers, the Negroes are no problem.” Likewise the same is true in regard to Jews; of the two we suffer more from Jew-lovers than we do Jews because without the Jew-lovers, the Jews are no problem.
Giles got 31 votes in his 2002 run for Congress.
1 comment:
Reminds me of that saying that "it's better to remain silent and thought a fool than speak up and remove all doubt."
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