Free Republic

Finding the proper home for this symbol of oppression isn’t as simple as politicians keep saying it is.In the aftermath of the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, that claimed the lives of nine parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, politicians from both sides of the aisle have called for the Confederate flag that flies on the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol to come down. A common theme of these calls to lower the flag has been the suggestion that this symbol of America’s racist past belongs not on a flagpole on public land but in a...

Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a black Muslim nationalist group, is calling for war. A race war, because to Farrakhan, like all in the Race Industry, everything is about race. Farrakhan made the call in a speech in Chicago, Barack Obama’s home, where he claimed that blacks have been oppressed for hundreds of years by whites. He called for reckoning because of the “iniquities of their fathers.” His rant focused on the shooting of the criminal thug, Michael Brown, as he attacked a white police officer with the intent to murder him. Farrakhan conveniently left out...

In a speech that criticized the American state of race relations, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan told a multi-faith gathering he plans to hold a Millions for Justice march in the nation's capital this fall, 20 years after the Million Man March. During the address at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Washington on Wednesday, Farrakhan said he intends to hold the rally Oct. 10 on the National Mall, scene of the 1995 march. "This is the time our people must see our unity," Farrakhan said. "Let's make 10/10/15 a meeting place for those who want justice, for...

BEIJING (AP) -- Racial discrimination and police abuses are rife in the United States, China's Cabinet said Friday, in a report intended as a counterpoint to U.S. criticism of Beijing's own human rights record. The report issued by the State Council Information Office cited the killing of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other cases in which African-Americans were shot and killed by white police officers....

The economic problems confronting African Americans are staggering, and many of them are rooted in the nation's shameful racial history. That is one takeaway from a Congressional Black Caucus meeting at the University of Baltimore on Tuesday, aimed at exploring the underlying causes of the April rioting that rocked Charm City in the wake of the suspicious death of Freddie Gray in police custody. Another takeaway might be that any solutions that would match the scale of the economic disparities are politically out of reach. The lawmakers, who were joined by several Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee for...

K Edgerton, a black Confederate advocate, tells of his fondness for the South, the Confederacy, the distinction between the original Klan and another formed forty years later for totally different purposes, and the rarely told truth about Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Amid the current efforts to remove the Confederate flag as a symbol from state and federal buildings and to divest from its commercial circulation as a product and commodity, it is also important to remember that a host of products lining grocery store shelves to this day, including Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix and Aunt Jemima Syrup, are also very much linked to Southern racism. Families, including children, still encounter Aunt Jemima on trips to the grocery store where products are marketed under this trademark by the Quaker Oats Company in the 21st century. Numerous writings have examined the development of...

The GOP presidential candidate spoke freely about race as a new poll puts him second in the field of Republican presidential contenders. The entertainment division of Univision Communications Inc. has announced that it is severing ties with the Miss Universe Organization, which is part-owned by Donald J. Trump, after recent reports of Trump's disparaging remarks toward Mexicans. "At Univision, we see first-hand the work ethic, love for family, strong religious values and the important role Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans have had and will continue to have in building the future of our country," a statement released by UCI reads. "We...

The mass murder of parishioners at the historic Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina law week, by a young white supremacist intensified the already profound national conversation about racism and violence that has been building since the killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012. There are more topics in play around Charleston than any single post (even an over long one like this) can address. So a couple of brief points before an extended discussion of one question, already taken up here on Prawfsblawg by Rick Hill (but I come out a bit different) on whether...

---snip--- It is perfectly emblematic of the empty, hashtagging political era that the primary role of government after a mass murder would be as a semiotic interpreter for the nation. As governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton celebrated his state’s Confederate heritage with a special star in his state’s flag. Now his wife is running for president as an ardent foe of Confederate remembrance. The GOP consensus of 20 years ago was that the display of the Confederate battle flag was up to the ones displaying it. Now they are falling over each other to denounce its public display. None of...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Louis Farrakhan stated “We need to put the American flag down. Because we’ve caught as much hell under that as the Confederate flag” in remarks before the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC on Wednesday first reported by DC’s WMAL. Farrakhan said, “White folks march with you because they don’t want you upsetting the city, they don’t give a damn about them nine.” He added that when the police took suspected shooter Dylann Roof to Burger King they were saying “You did a good job. Kill all them [bleep.]”(continued)

On June 17, a truly evil and racist high school dropout, Dylann Roof, shot and killed nine black Christians in one of Charleston, South Carolina's oldest and most well-known black churches, Emanuel AME Church. Among the murdered was the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, ordained when he was 18. There are not enough words to condemn this despicable act. As a Messianic Jew – I refer to myself as a Jewish Christian – I can try to relate a little from the history of pogroms and violence that Jews have experienced throughout the years. We cringe to hear of such tragedies. Instantly,...

Matthew 5:9 says “Blessed are the peacemakers” and it would appear Pastor Clementa Pinckney was definitely one of those. While the mainstream media is decrying the fact that the Charleston shooting victim’s body was carried past a Confederate flag today, the good pastor may not have found it all that offensive. In 2000, during his first term in the South Carolina State Senate, Pinckney actually voted in favor of H5028, the May 2000 compromise which placed the flag at its current location. H5028 related to THE PERMANENT PLACEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES FLAG, THE SOUTH CAROLINA STATE FLAG, AND THE...

In so many ways, the story of Dylann Roof, the shooting suspect who allegedly killed nine people in an historic South Carolina black church, is a parallel to the story of America itself. Who, at this point, can feign surprise at this latest massacre when it sits at the nexus of so much that is familiar and perfectly in line with the U.S. that we know? We are a country where mass shootings are weekly news, where gun violence is a fact of daily life, where there is a legacy of terror against black people and communities, where white racists...

Amir Said Abdul Rahman Al-Ghazi, previously known as Robert C. McCollum, was arrested by the FBI June 19 on charges that he supported ISIS, a terrorist organization. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Sheffield Lake man facing terrorism charges told a FBI informant that if war broke out in the U.S. between Muslims and non-Muslims, he would "cut off the head of his non-Muslim son if necessary," according to a criminal complaint. Amir Said Abdul Rahman Al-Ghazi's comment about his son is revealed in the 33-page complaint filed Friday by the FBI in U.S. District Court. The complaint also states that when...

The media is really covering itself in glory these days. Just yesterday the Washington Post well full on racist against Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and today The Hill ran with this nonsense from an obvious black racist who clearly hasn’t been able to comprehend what’s gone on the past few days. It’s the capture-the-flag you never saw coming.In a shrewdly mapped play, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s (R) call to remove the flapping Confederate rebel jack from state capitol grounds suddenly prompted an entire party to reverse course on the issue. And after years of happily whistling political Dixie as...

“… I think to every African-American in the country it’s a symbolism of slavery to them and now it’s a symbol of murder for this young man and so I think it’s times to put it in a museum.” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says he believes the Confederate battle flag is “inescapably a symbol of human bondage and slavery” and needs to go. “No, I agree, I think the flag is inescapably a symbol of human bondage and slavery, and particularly when people use it obviously for murder and to justify hated so vicious that you would kill somebody I...

Ann Coulter waded into the Confederate flag debate this morning on C-SPAN, calling the whole debate “completely moronic.” She said that what’s happening is just “a litany of liberal talking points that make Republicans look bad,” and asked, “How about banning the Democratic Party?” Coulter repeatedly pointed to how Democrats were against civil rights for the longest time. She also asked, “If we want to do something nice for black people, how about ending immigration, which is dumping millions of low-wage workers on the country, taking jobs from African-Americans?”

Don’t count Lindsey Graham among the Republican Presidential hopefuls who think that mass shooting in Charleston was about something other than race. He spoke out this weekend to address the murders, and his statement differs sharply from what some of his colleagues are saying. Unlike Rick Santorum and Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham isn’t pretending the murders were about religion or insisting that we can’t tell yet what motivated the attack. Instead, Graham openly recognizes that this attack was racially motivated — and says that America has a long way to go in the racial relations department. “There can be no...

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley suggested Sunday that Congress had fallen under the sway of "white racism" and the political force of the National Rifle Assn. in refusing to respond with new laws to a cascade of shooting incidents in recent years.. Speaking before the nation’s mayors, gathered in San Francisco, O’Malley pointed to gun restrictions passed when he was governor of Maryland to ban assault weapons, enforce background checks and tighten permitting procedures -- efforts that have been blocked at the national level by Republicans, and some Democrats, in Congress. "One of the sad triumphs of white racism is...