Connect with us

South Carolina: Home Of Hate Crimes, Homophobia, Racism, And Hypocrisy

Published

on

From its long history of slavery, suppression of women’s suffrage, and black and poor voter-disenfranchisement, to the George Rekers rentboy scandal, to last week’s racist epithets thrown by a state senator, to the racial slaying and dragging of a black man by his white co-worker, South Carolina has become the epicenter of everything that’s wrong with America.

Now, before you go all Confederate on me, and tell me it’s unfair to blame an entire state for the actions of just a few, I’ll agree, but I’ll also blame the people of South Carolina (who number slightly more than half the population of New York City,) for allowing the same ugly events to happen again and again. At some point, citizens have to stand up and say, “Enough!”

Perhaps South Carolina will change its tourism slogan from “Smiling Faces. Beautiful Places,” to “Yeah, Mark Sanford isn’t the only bad thing here.”

Let’s take a quick look at some of what has happened in the way of hate and bigotry since South Carolina was born, to today.

Thomas Jefferson planned to denounce slavery in the Declaration of Independence, but removed those references to ensure South Carolina joined the Union.

Slavery was such a part of South Carolina in the late 1600s, that in less than fifty years, the people of South Carolina exported almost fifty-thousand captured American Indians and sold them as slaves, so they could buy more African slaves, who were deemed more knowledgeable and skilled.

Despite the gift of allowing slavery to exist to ensure South Carolina join the Union, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union. Had our Founding Fathers the gumption to stick to their guns, the entire slavery industry and the civil war might not have existed.

Long after the Civil War, South Carolina disenfranchised the majority of its black and poor voters, and was the second-to-last state to ratify and implement the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, a full forty-nine years after the Amendment became law.

Today, many South Carolinians want to stay true to their Confederate, secessionist, racist, slavery-supporting heritage. That’s why, “[l]ess than half of the candidates running for South Carolina governor say they would consider moving the Confederate flag that flies in front of the South Carolina Statehouse; none of the candidates say they would.”

In the twenty-first century, flying the Confederate flag, a symbol of secession, racism, and slavery, is unacceptable and un-American.

You know what else is un-American? Yelling “You lie!’ at the President of the United States during a joint session of Congress. That line in the sand, throwing away centuries of respect and decorum, was drawn by South Carolina’s Representative Joe Wilson. Wilson has uttered other controversial epithets and lies in the past, including calling the fact that former Senator and presidential candidate Strom Thurmond fathered an out-of-wedlock daughter via an interracial affair a “smear.”

Congressmen like Joe Wilson would do well to remember that “representative” is part of their official title, and responsibilities.

Another Congressman from South Carolina has faced the ludicrous assignation of being censured, twice, for being too bi-partisian. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was censured by his own party in his own state “because of his work with Democrats on immigration and climate change.”

Being too bi-partisan is not Senator Graham’s only problem. The head of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) thinks Graham is gay, and has no problem saying so, and saying it’s a problem.

“I hope this secret it isn’t being used as leverage over Senator Graham, so today I think Senator Graham, you need to come forward and tell people about your alternative lifestyle and your homosexuality.”

OK…

I know that George Rekers reference up top may have intrigued you, so I’ll remind you that rentboy-renting, long-stroke and rubdown-receiving George Rekers is a professor, emeritus, of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. Figures.

You know what else figures? South Carolina is going to cut its entire HIV/AIDS budget. Tough times call for tough measures, especially against gay people, I guess…

South Carolina’s disgraced Governor Mark Sanford is a member of “The Family,” an extreme right-wing religious group that preaches politicians should stay in power at all costs. He is a man who embarrassed himself time and again, and, just one year ago this month, made the term “hiking the Appalachian Trail” a euphemism for having an extra-marital affair with a woman in South America. Surprisingly, Sanford has ridden out the tough times and calls for his impeachment, most likely because he is term-limited and cannot run again for governor.

(Rachel Maddow had a few hings to say last year about Governor Mark Sanford’s hypocrisy.)

Sanford was forced to resign as head of the Republican Governors Association after admitting to the affair. Sanford, now divorced due to his affair, also was unanimously censured in lieu of being impeached, but was never brought up on charges for misuse of state funds or his trips to Argentina.

Speaking of state funds, the Governor himself, while finding it acceptable to bill the citizens of his state for illicit affairs, did not think it acceptable to accept federal government stimulus funds, despite the fact that his state “ranks #2 in unemployment, and #11 in child homelessness.” The Governor also did not think it acceptable back in 2008 to pay for ads his tourism board had run, touting “South Carolina is so gay.”

Mark Sanford has a unique sense of what is and is not acceptable.

You remember that horrible, endless airport “press conference?” That was bad. So were Sanford’s Lieutenant Governor’s despicable statements early this year about the poor.

Now, remember, in January, South Carolina had one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country, 12.6%. Which prompted Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer to state,

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals.

“You know why? Because they breed.

“You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”

No wonder Sanford didn’t get impeached. That ignorant asshat is what would have been running the state if Sanford were gone.

I suppose I should in all fairness mention that that ignorant asshat has also been accused of being in the closet, supposedly by activist Mike Rogers, but later it was reported the accusations came from, yes, Governor Mark Sanford.

Sadly, the morality morass in South Carolina gets worse. Much worse.

On Thursday of last week, South Carolina Republican State Senator Jake Knotts called Nikki Haley, an American of Indian descent running for Governor, a “fucking raghead,” during an interview taped at a local bar. (It should be noted most media outlets did not report the “fucking” portion of his comments.)

The Columbia, South Carolina Free Times reports,

With a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face outside a Columbia bar, Republican S.C. Sen. Jake Knotts called Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American Republican woman running for governor, a “raghead” several times while explaining how he believed she was hiding her true religion from voters.

“She’s a f#!king raghead,” Knotts said.

He later clarified his statement. He did not mean to use the F-word.

Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.

“We got a raghead in Washington; we don’t need one in South Carolina,” Knotts said more than once. “She’s a raghead that’s ashamed of her religion trying to hide it behind being Methodist for political reasons.”

Later, the America Foreign Press reported this “apology” from Knotts:

“Since my intended humorous context was lost in translation, I apologize,” Knotts said. “I still believe Ms Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.”

OK…

Haley, for whom Sarah Palin has recorded robocalls, has been accused by two men of having extra-marital affairs with each of them. She denies the charges and, in an act just one step better than the man who endorses her, Mark Sanford, has offered to resign the Governorship, should she win and it be proven she has had any affair.

That’s a relief.

But wait, there’s more.

As if everything I just wrote wasn’t bad enough, this, my friends, is where it gets disgusting, and disgusting for two reasons. The first is that this atrocity happened, the second is that it’s not being covered much by the main stream media.

Also last week in South Carolina, days before Knotts’ racist “raghead” remarks were made, Gregory Collins, a white male who is nineteen years old, was arrested for murder. Specifically, for shooting in the head, then tying one end of a nylon rope around the neck of his victim, the thirty-year old black man he just killed, and the other end of the rope to Collins’ own truck, then dragging the dead man’s body for ten miles.

Police located Collins from the miles-long trail of blood that lead to his trailer, where they found twenty guns and high-powered rifles. Collins, who worked with his thirty-year old victim, Anthony Hill, claimed he did it in self-defense. The two reportedly had spent the day together and drank into the wee hours of the morning.

Fortunately, and despite South Carolina’s Republican U.S. Senator Jim DeMint’s objections to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which passed last year, the FBI is investigating this atrocity as a hate crime. Yes, Senator DeMint, hate crimes happen to your constituents, even the non-gay ones.

DeMint, who has partnered with RedState founder and CNN bigot Erick Erickson, last year claimed, healthcare reform could be Obama’s “Waterloo.” The South Carolina freshman Senator went too far, and his words became the title and, later, the pink slip for Republican writer David Frum.

But DeMInt himself could see a pink slip in his future, as he’s the subject of an ethics complaint for his lodging at “The Family’s” C Street, the very institution that fellow South Carolina pol Mark Sanford belongs to.

Of course, South Carolina is one of the states championing repeal of Obama’s health care bill. Why would a state whose residents have a far worse than average rate of homelessness, unemployment, infant mortality, obesity, hypertension, poverty, etc., want to help its citizens lead a better life?

Of course it wouldn’t. South Carolina has been the center of hate, homophobia, racism, in short, Republicanism, for four centuries.

Why stop now?

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘Absolute Nonsense’: Bondi Blasted for Saying Judge Has ‘No Right’ to Question DOJ

Published

10 hours ago

on

March 19, 2025

By

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is the latest official to expand the Trump administration’s attack on the judicial branch of government, denouncing U.S. Chief District Court Judge James Boasberg, who is questioning their use of an 18th century wartime-only law and attempting to determine whether or not the administration violated his Saturday order to redirect planes sending detainees to an El Salvador “slave jail.”

Bondi appeared on Fox News on Wednesday afternoon (video below) to discuss the questions Judge Boasberg has asked the Trump administration to answer, after it had refused to order the planes to return, saying the aircraft were over international waters and therefore he had no lawful authority to make the order.

Bondi appeared on Fox News Wednesday afternoon (video below) to discuss the questions Judge Boasberg has posed to the Trump administration, which had declined to order the planes’ to turn around, arguing that once they were over international waters, Boasberg lacked the legal authority to order their return.

When asked how the Department of Justice will respond, Bondi lashed out.

“Well, well, our our our lawyers are working on this, we will answer appropriately, but what I will tell you is this judge has no right to ask those questions,” the Attorney General declared. “You have one unelected federal judge trying to control foreign policies, trying to control the Alien Enemies Act, which they have no business presiding over and there are 261 reasons why Americans are safer now. Because those people are out of this country.”

READ MORE: White House Press Secretary Schooled on ‘Democrat Activist’ Judge Trump Wants Impeached

She continued: “The judge had no business, no power to do what he did.”

Bondi also blasted the judge for recognizing that time was a critical factor in this matter.

Judge Boasberg “came in on an emergency basis on a Saturday with very, very short notice at any, to our attorney to run in the courtroom, you know, and this has been a pattern with these liberal judges you just spoke about that. It’s been a pattern with what they’ve been doing. This judge had no right to do that,” Bondi claimed, wrongly identified tidying Boasberg as a “liberal judge.”

“They’re meddling in foreign affairs, they’re meddling in our government, and the question should be, why is the judge trying to protect terrorists who have invaded our country over American citizens?” she asked.

Questions have been raised about why none of the 261 deportees have been publicly identified, why most were not criminally charged, and why none appeared before a federal judge before being sent to a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador—a country to which few, if any, have ties.

READ MORE: ‘Delusional’ Schumer Spirals in ‘Devastating’ New Interview as Leadership Crisis Deepens

“You know, TdA is a terrorist organization,” Bondi said, referring to Tren de Aragua, “they are organized, that they have a government structure within them. They are sending money not only throughout this country to each other, but back to Venezuela, they are a terrorist organization and we are not going to have that in our country.”

Attorney and immigration expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick blasted Bondi.

“This is such absolute nonsense because the judge isn’t trying to control anything about foreign policies, he’s trying to figure out if his court order was violated,” Reichlin-Melnick remarked. “Bondi simply is refusing to engage with the reality of what is happening in the court case.”

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell posted an excerpt from Judge Boasberg’s order: “The Court seeks this information, not as a ‘micromanaged and unnecessary judicial fishing expedition’, but to determine if the govt deliberately flouted its Orders issued on March 15, 2025, and, if so, what the consequences should be.”

With the video below or at this link.

RELATED: Trump Pushes to Impeach ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ Judge in Unhinged Morning Rant

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

White House Press Secretary Schooled on ‘Democrat Activist’ Judge Trump Wants Impeached

Published

13 hours ago

on

March 19, 2025

By

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt continued the administration’s attack on James Boasberg, the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, even after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts strongly criticized President Donald Trump for his call to impeach the jurist.

NBC News’ Garrett Haake asked Leavitt if it is “a good use of Congress’s time and the president’s political capital to try to impeach and remove a federal judge, which would take 67 votes, you’re unlikely to get in the Senate?”

“Well, look,” she replied, “the president has made it clear that he believes this judge in this case should be impeached, and he has also made it clear that he has great respect for the Chief Justice, John Roberts.”

READ MORE: ‘Delusional’ Schumer Spirals in ‘Devastating’ New Interview as Leadership Crisis Deepens

Leavitt wrongly insisted that it is “incumbent upon the Supreme Court to rein in these activist judges. These partisan activists are undermining the judicial branch by doing so. We have co-equal branches of government for a reason and the president feels very strongly about that.”

Aside from the Supreme Court choosing to take a case and overrule a lower court judge, it has no authority to “rein in” district court judges whose rulings it does not like. The Supreme Court has no disciplinary authority to punish judges who have lifetime appointments to the federal bench.

When she was asked how the president decides who is a “bad” judge, is it “just someone who disagrees with him?” Leavitt replied, “No, it has nothing to do with disagreeing with the president on policy. It’s with disagreeing with the Constitution and the law.”

RELATED: Trump Pushes to Impeach ‘Radical Left Lunatic’ Judge in Unhinged Morning Rant

“And it’s trying to usurp the authority of the executive branch of this country,” she alleged.

Leavitt appears to be referring to what is commonly called “checks and balances,” and “judicial review,” part of the mechanism of the U.S. Constitution.

Leavitt also attacked Chief Judge Boasberg, saying, “this judge, Judge Boasberg is a Democrat activist. He was appointed by Barack Obama, his wife has donated more than $10,000 to Democrats, and he has consistently shown his disdain for this president and his policies and it’s unacceptable.”

That’s when Haake interjected.

Boasberg “was originally appointed by George W. Bush,” a Republican president, Haake informed her, “and then elevated by Barack Obama. It just feels like I should clear that up,” he noted.

Attorney Aaron Parnas blasted the Press Secretary:

“Karoline Leavitt is trying to gaslight the American public. Judge Boasberg was appointed by George W. Bush in 2002. He was elevated by President Obama in 2011 and was confirmed 96-0, with every Republican supporting his elevation to the federal bench.”

Chief Justice Roberts also appointed Judge Boasberg to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) where he served as presiding judge, and appointed him to the U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court as a chief judge.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Chief Justice Smacks Down Trump

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

OPINION

‘Delusional’ Schumer Spirals in ‘Devastating’ New Interview as Leadership Crisis Deepens

Published

16 hours ago

on

March 19, 2025

By

Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in an attempt to cauterize the self-inflicted wound from his decision to help Republicans pass their “CR,” continuing resolution, last week—a move backed by President Donald Trump—may have only deepened what some rank-and-file Democrats see as a crisis of leadership.

In what some are calling a “devastating” interview Tuesday evening with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, the Democratic leader appeared unwilling to grasp the full extent of the current threat level to American democracy, that our democracy is now at a crossroads—a fact well-documented by experts on democracy, and proclaimed by a Democratic U.S. Senator—and struggled to acknowledge that the nation is facing a constitutional crisis.

Trying to defend what is being seen as a lack of strategy, an inability to grasp the gravity of this moment in American history, and a refusal to fight the battle that is actually before him, Schumer made his argument to Hayes.

President Donald Trump’s approval “numbers have started to go down, from 51 to 47. If we keep at it and keep at it and keep at it, his numbers will be much lower. He will not only be less popular, but less effective,” Schumer insisted.

Schumer additionally claimed that “we will find the moments where we shouldn’t give them votes.”

READ MORE: ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’: GOP Senator Furious Over Judge’s USAID Ruling

But Schumer was sitting in Hayes’s studio exactly because he did give Republicans votes. He canceled his book tour that was supposed to start this week, reportedly due to security threats, and instead has been hitting the talk shows and cable news defending his decision — and his leadership position.

“There’s this weird asymmetry right now,” Hayes observed, noting that Republicans “are acting in this totally new way, in which they are ambitiously trying to seize all power and create a presidential dictatorship in the United States of America, and the Democratic opposition is acting like, ‘Well, if we can get their approval rate down a few points.’ Then what? Then what happens?”

“Well,” Schumer, still in defensive mode, declared, saying that “what happens is, look, first, we get it way down, he’s gonna have much like we—this worked in 2017.”

For some on social media, that appeared to be the inflection point—the moment that Schumer exposed that he is using the old playbook that the Trump administration, MAGA, The Heritage Foundation, and Project 2025 burned long ago.

“You say now it’s a different government,” Schumer acknowledged.

“It’s different, though,” Hayes pressed.

“Oh, it is different, but health care: we beat them. Taxes: we beat them, and guess what we did? Guess what we did, Chris? We took back the House and won in the Senate, and that got and then we were allowed to do all those good things.”

Hayes also honed in on Schumer’s 2017 reference.

“I don’t disagree with that, but the difference to me between 2017 and now,” he explained, is that it “is a full-fledged assault on the Constitutional order that has not been seen.”

And Hayes asked, “but then the question becomes, what is the role of the minority in resisting that, that’s distinct from ‘we’re gonna beat them on health care, we’re gonna beat them on spending with Medicaid.'”

Then Schumer said, “If our democracy is at risk—”

“It is at risk,” Hayes declared.

READ MORE: Chief Justice Smacks Down Trump

“Sorry. It is certainly at risk,” Schumer acknowledged, after Hayes made that declaration, but then he ignored Hayes’s question: “Do you believe” it is at risk?

Schumer moved on, appearing to say that if the federal courts ultimately fail to hold Trump, “we’ll have the court of public opinion, and if that happens, as you pointed out, we have had rule of law since the Magna Carta, okay?”

“The people will have to rise up, not just Democrats, not just Republicans, not just, you know, people everybody. But our democracy will be at stake then,” he said, again, not appearing to grasp that, as experts say, it is right now.

“And if the people make their voices heard as strong and stand up, and we join them, I believe we can try to beat that back.”

“We can beat that back, but it’s it’s it’s up on that one, if democracy is at risk, that’s a little different than what we’re talking about now — even a shutdown as horrible as it is.”

“We’ll all have to stand up and fight back in every way,” Schumer concluded.

Critics, and rank-and-file Democrats, and some elected Democrats, say the fight should have started when Trump was elected.

The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a noted political scientist, responded to a clip of Hayes’ interview with Schumer, declaring, “Chuck is delusional.”

That word has repeatedly surfaced.

“‘This worked in 2017’ is all you need to hear. I can understand Schumer’s logic on the shutdown, but he’s delusional if he thinks that’s a winning strategy,” observed Cosmopolitan editor Olivia Truffaut-Wong.

“You know, I watched Sen. Schumer on Chris Hayes and really tried to hear him defend his actions in good faith,” wrote Charlotte Clymer, a former Human Rights Campaign press secretary who has called for Schumer to resign, “but by the end of their discussion, it just felt impossible for me to avoid this very deep sense of dangerous foreboding. Big ‘tempting fate’ energy in the worse way. Honestly scary.”

One day before Schumer’s MSNBC interview, Clymer on Monday had already made the case for “Why Chuck Schumer Should Step Down.”

“We have lost our way not because of what we believe in,” she wrote, referring to rank-and-file Democratic voters, “but because of our party leadership’s reluctance to fight for what we believe in.”

Sam Seder, the progressive political commentator and host of “The Majority Report with Sam Seder,” declared Schumer’s interview with Hayes was “devastating for Schumer. ..ignoring the criticism from all corners of the party..can’t articulate a strategy. It’s bizarre. He thinks it’s 2017.”

He also wrote that Schumer was “trying to justify his lack of leadership and strategy on his failed dirty CR. He’s panicked and should be. He is not up to the era. Instead of fighting against every other Democratic leader he should resign for the sake of the country.”

Emma Vigeland, Seder’s co-host, wrote that Chris Hayes “nailed Schumer at the end of tonight’s interview by getting him to equivocate about whether or not we are currently at risk of losing our democracy. This is entirely out of step with how the base feels and saying this on MSNBC could (and should!) cost him his leadership.”

Elected Democrats are starting to break their wall of silence and call for Schumer to resign as Senate Democratic Leader.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) on Tuesday, as C-SPAN reported, said: “I was deeply disappointed that Senator Schumer voted with the Republicans. You know you’re on bad ground when you get a personal tweet from Donald Trump thanking you for your vote…I’m afraid it may be time for the Senate Democrats to pick new leadership…”

Christopher Webb, a social media political commentator with a strong following multi-platform following, posted edited video of the interview and also called it “devastating.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Welcome to Autocracy’: Trump Declaring Biden’s Pardons ‘Void’ Debunked and Denounced

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.