What I think of South Carolina

[RoccoRyg]

Here's an excerpt of my eBook, "This God, I."

“South Carolina was, of course, a slave state where half of the citizens owned slaves. A South Carolinian congressman walked into the Senate and beat an abolitionist senator with a steel-tipped cane. His state welcomed him back as a hero. With the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency, the southern states feared that slavery would be abolished. South Carolina was the first to secede from the union, shelling Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. After the Civil War, when Lincoln freed all of the slaves, South Carolina prevented blacks from voting by instituting poll taxes and literacy tests.

“During the Civil Rights Era, this state resisted desegregation. Senator Strom Thurmond filibustered the Civil Rights Act for over twenty-four hours straight. His state punished him by reelecting him over and over again until he was a hundred years old.

“Since then, South Carolina has loyally kept to its traditions of craziness. Their former Governor disappeared and surfaced in Argentina seeing his mistress, their Miss America contestant gave the most deranged answer to a pageant question, one of their congressmen called the President a liar during the State of the Union address, a weirdo won the Senate primary just because his name was first on the ballot, their Lieutenant Governor said not to feed poor people because they’re like starving animals… the list goes on and on.”

[Dawson Leery]

1. This is a state which flies the equivalent of a Swastika at it's Capital.

[frazzled]

3. My husband is from South Carolina

Born and bred in Charleston. But he represents a rather different story from the one you describe (though many of its elements are of course true). He was a Jewish kid whose family had come from Europe to South Carolina in the early 20th century. He lived with his divorced mother, who ran a five-and-dime store that catered mostly to island people. He grew up speaking Gullah when he was little and hung out in the store. By the time he was in high school, he was one of only five white kids in his class; his best friend was an African American-Asian-Hispanic boy (yes, all three). He went off to New York eventually for school, and that's where we met.

My husband is about as liberal/progressive as they come; he is also one of the most non-racist, non-sexist people I have ever met. He sometimes marvels at the kind of racism he encountered in Northern cities.

I only say all this to remind everyone that not everyone in South Carolina is a beauty queen or a racist. Let's denounce the institutional issues in the state and many of its politicians, but let's not tar everyone with the same brush. Remember, it was that little lady in a small SC town who gave us "Fired Up."

[Dawson Leery]

5. The problem is

the majority of the state's residents are kooks.

I feel bad for the minority who are sane. I feel an even deeper sorrow for the minute minority of liberals in Talibornagain Oklahoma.

[name not needed]

4. Too small to be its own country, too large to be an insane asylum.

[BlueStreak]

7. But we really should try one of those options.

[Warpy]

6. Uh,