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Comment Archives: Stories

Re: “The SPLC's gender assignment case comes down to civil rights”

Ah, "bigotry." There it is at long last. Took you long enough to get around to it.

"Richard Keefe believes things I do not. Ergo and theretofore I shall label him a "bigot" lest anyone else should be swayed by his spurious "facts." We can't have people entertaining "wrong thoughts," after all."

Webster's defines "bigot" as "a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices." I'm wide open to opinions of all persuasions, even those I don't agree with, as long as they are expressed civilly.

Are you?

I voted for President Obama twice. I believe in same-sex marriage and I also believe that South Carolina should have waited before operating on this child. I think the State committed a horrendous act of malpractice and the courts will bear it out.

Which pigeonhole should I move to now, Mat?

Your hypothetical "black/white reassignment" is NOT part of this article either and therefore not part of this discussion. Stop setting up these baseless straw men, "Children have no civil liberties??" and stick to the facts. Geez. "Think of the children!!" Pathetic.

You know, I've spent years examining the SPLC's corporate records and public statements and I've come to conclusions that you don't agree with. So be it. But if all you have is name-calling, labels and ad hominem attacks, you don't have much.

Maybe you should examine your own prejudices and intolerance before self-righteously smearing others. I know it gags you, but diversity goes beyond skin color and sexual identification. It includes the world of ideas too.

Here are a few more factoids about your heroes for you to ponder, though I doubt you will. In 1994, the Montgomery Advertiser, the SPLC's hometown newspaper, wrote an expose entitled "Equal Treatment? No Blacks in Center's Leadership.? Here's a link to the article, that you won't bother reading because it offends you: http://rkeefe57.wordpress.com/montgomery-a…

The article claimed that 23 years after Morris Dees opened the SPLC there were no minorities in highly paid positions of authority. The few black lawyers he hired in the 70s had all quit, citing "a plantation mentality." The highest ranking black at the SPLC at the time ran the mail room, where she had worked for the past 20 years. Big deal.

The article continued that SPLC's newly formed "Teaching Tolerance" project, which purported to promote diversity in the K-12 classroom, was staffed entirely by whites only.

Fast forward to 2013 and review the SPLC's IRS Form 990 tax returns, as I have, and you know what's changed? Not much. The top leadership at the SPLC is as lily-white today as it was in 1971. "Teaching Tolerance" has continued to be led by "whites only" for more than 21 of its 22 years, except for a brief interregnum when African American Lecia Brooks was allowed to head the department for a few months until her red-headed, blue-eyed successor could be hired.

Here's another link to my evidence, that again, you won't read because we can't have inconvenient facts intruding in our deeply held personal beliefs, can we?

http://wp.me/pCLYZ-i3

Maybe you don't see this as hypocritical, but I sure do. Probably the most galling fact is that the SPLC headquarters are located LITERALLY in the back yard of Dr. Martin Luther King's own Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. When the all-white execs at the SPLC gather to discuss their latest fundraising ploy the windows of their Executive Suite look down on Dr. Kings church, as do they.

If the all-white millionaire hypocrites who run the Southern Poverty Law Center are your heroes and impervious to legitimate criticism, you go with that. For my part, a 42-year old "civil rights" group, located in Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the American Civil Rights movement, with more than 200 employees, more than $250 MILLION dollars in cash on hand and NOT ONE minority in highly paid position of authority is suspect.

Insert your defense of the SPLC here:

3 of 4 people like this.
Posted by rkeefe57 on June 13, 2013 at 6:06 PM

Re: “Racism is just another form of class warfare”

What do you think the odds are, that somewhere in the ghettos of this great nation some poor black kid has to grow up with the first name Facetious ?

1 of 3 people like this.
Posted by gnu name on June 13, 2013 at 5:48 PM

Re: “Troubadour finds new, upscale home”

Love it when our LOCALS make it cuz they earned it...

1 of 1 people like this.
Posted by Grandee on June 13, 2013 at 5:28 PM

Re: “Singer-songwriter Livy Conner releases debut disc featuring Kevin Hackler and Brad Edwardson”

WE love Livy!

Posted by Grandee on June 13, 2013 at 5:25 PM

Re: “Beware what you post online; Social Intelligence is watching you”

This was way uncool when W was pulling this crap, but now that our great "messiah", deliverer of change is pushing the same thing, suddenly it's OK. I guess his sheep will follow him into an open active volcano.

Posted by Anthony Marquez on June 13, 2013 at 5:24 PM

Re: “Racism is just another form of class warfare”

As far as your asking his record..You can google it faster than i can cut and paste. I was not being facetious.
He has done a worthy job as a Senator so far. It just depends on your own political stand. He has a 100% voting record on several legislative scorecards, but since those don't agree with your mostly liberal opinons it doesn't do much good to discuss it.
I still believe he is a man of great personality, brilliance and character.

7 of 8 people like this.
Posted by artrogue on June 13, 2013 at 5:02 PM

Re: “Racism is just another form of class warfare”

Personally i believe Matt owes Senator Scott an apology. I still believe Haire should
have apologized months ago for another previous slight.
Whether you agree with the Senator's direction and representation of our State or not, He is without a doubt a man of character. He came upon his political stance on his own and joined the only party that closely matched his own personal beliefs.

5 of 7 people like this.
Posted by artrogue on June 13, 2013 at 4:42 PM

Re: “Rutledge Cab Co. pulls into Wagener Terrace”

The burger is AMAZING here. Top notch. Loved the picked veggies too. Could eat a whole plate of those.

Posted by srudnicki1 on June 13, 2013 at 3:18 PM

Re: “The SPLC's gender assignment case comes down to civil rights”

"Shouting people down because you disagree with them is little more than vigilantism."

You run a blog where for years you have been doing exactly that.

---------------

gnu,

I am not making any accusation. I am simply stating that this person (who, if you google him, has been camping on SPLC stories for years, all over the internet) is making a very weird factual assertion that this case does not have a civil rights angle, without making a single argument for why it doesn't.

That's not worthy of debate (but completely worthy of being called out for being a horrible manner of debate. Meta. It's what's for dinner....

But I digress.)

Now, let's think about what civil rights this case might have, shall we?

Let's say, just for amusement's sake, that fifty years ago a child born to one white and one black parent was orphaned and left in a state hospital and, (way out on the limb here), let's say the hospital decided, "Hey, you know what? We can totally *fix* this kid right here and now and make him/her totally white (or black)."

Would you consider that a violation of someone's civil rights?

Now, you might argue that the child in my story isn't going to have to consciously choose a racial identity later in life. And that's true, in fact, it's also true of M.C. in this case - there wasn't going to be a conscious decision about who he was, just one about whether or not to make the outside match the inside.

And that's a decision the child should have been allowed to make. It doesn't matter if this is the only child this happens to in a century or not. It doesn't matter if it never happens again. This young person, who might have already been headed for a pretty rough life in a society entirely too small-minded and stupid to accept a few completely non-controversial facts about human biology and gender, sex, and sexuality, now has the added bonus of feeling like they aren't even worth being allowed to take part in the decision about their own life.

When you take away someone's rights to make a decision like that for themselves, you have violated a pretty basic concept of civil, hell, human rights.

For Mr. Keefe to argue otherwise, particularly without offering a single legal or philosophical point on his behalf speaks volumes about his agenda, and his bigotry.

3 of 6 people like this.
Posted by mat catastrophe on June 13, 2013 at 2:59 PM

Re: “The Agenda: Rainey-Haley suit dismissed; Cruise case progresses; CARTA starts free airport-area service”

"The Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority launched a new service this week in North Charleston paid for by the city, Boeing Co. and the Charleston County Aviation Authority."

That's the first sentence of the story.

I'd like to see the breakdown of those contributions.

2 of 3 people like this.
Posted by mat catastrophe on June 13, 2013 at 2:28 PM

Re: “Festival soars with its music programming, flops on most everything else”

Really? Mr. Day, I'm so disappointed in City Paper's selection of you as the overall festival reviewer. You're writing is sub-par and leads me to think that City Paper should take a long, hard look at whether or not they should be utilizing your "talents" for next year's festival.

6 of 6 people like this.
Posted by FreckleFan on June 13, 2013 at 2:28 PM

Re: “Roan Garcia-Quintana opposes interracial marriage but dislikes segregation”

Several things... first, I applaud this nutjob for having the balls to say what he believes. I would much rather know a person is prejudiced or bigoted than to have to wonder and speculate. Plus, as far as I can tell, he believes that he has the right to believe this garbage without the government having any role in it. I know lots of people who do not agree with interracial marriage or homosexuality, some of which I love or consider among my closest friends. They may be misguided in my opinion, but I am not the final authority on morality or even perversion.

The comments on these things always crack me up.

CIA, your proud boasting of your pure Spanish bloodlines as a way to insenuate that you are better than this man seem just as ugly and myopic as Mr. Garcia's claims about how the country should look. I am a true Heinz 57 (verified English, Irish, Swiss, German, African, Native American, Scotch, and Dutch.) So if Mr. Garcia cannot claim his Spanish heritage when much of his bloodline is likely Spanish, does that mean I can't claim to have any of my ancestors either? I mean, I know I look white as the next cracker, but I know for a fact that I have 2 black ancestors. Does that "drop of blood" make me impure or something?

gnu and brew, you guys are definitely locked in a battle of semantics, but this highlights much about why Mr. Garcia has a right to feel the way he does. You guys obviously cannot agree on homosexuality and sodomy (two very different things, btw), so why should everyone else agree on any of these other topics? Even if you say "if it isn't harming anyone, it is okay" you still have people that will tell you that pornography (loose sense, not legal sense), homosexuality, bisexuality, interracial relationships and many other things are tearing at the "moral fabric" of this country, thus causing real and perceived harm to the citizenry. Opinions, and laws in this country change slowly. We are seeing that now. Is it fair? Is it just? Probably not. Is it discrimination? Probably so.

2 of 2 people like this.
Posted by alistair_10 on June 13, 2013 at 2:26 PM

Re: “Charleston Pride moves downtown for its fourth year”

Correction : We are Family is the local group here.

Time Out Youth is in Charlotte

0 of 2 people like this.
Posted by Driftaway on June 13, 2013 at 2:15 PM

Re: “Charleston Pride moves downtown for its fourth year”

Keep it classy Localhutch. It's a tired myth that GLBT are all wealthy. It's not the case and especially not in SC.

Furthermore our parade is very local centric and family friendly. Local supportive churches walk with us and merchants like Whole Foods.

Support is given to local groups like Time Out Youth for LGBT youth at the festival.

Don't come downtown on parade day if we bother you that much.

The only "ruckus" would be the bad attitudes of people like you.

And no contest the mostly straight patrons on Cinco de Mayo and St Patricks Day downtown are a lot trashier than us evil gays.

1 of 6 people like this.
Posted by Driftaway on June 13, 2013 at 2:06 PM

Re: “S.C. beer geeks rejoice at new tasting law”

I'm so happy that this finally got passed. I like hanging out at the breweries much more than going to bars, as the atmosphere is cooler, and I know that my money is going directly to support the local beer scene. Cheers!

2 of 2 people like this.
Posted by queenofthefoodage on June 13, 2013 at 1:34 PM

Re: “The Eroding Edge of America”

Go for it. Folly Beach practically will grab its ankles to allow anyone to build any building, anywhere. Apartment canyon by the sea, wall to wall apartments coming soon.

5 of 9 people like this.
Posted by LuvtheNewslessCourier on June 13, 2013 at 12:57 PM

Re: “Racism is just another form of class warfare”

Cheap shot native. I'm gonna go ahead and say I think this article is some damn fine writing. Don't happen to agree with all the opinions; and don't believe understanding history is ever a straight line of absolutes.

Still a very good article, great structure, well worded and thought provoking. IMO Mat's best, and most poignant contribution in a long time.

3 of 8 people like this.
Posted by gnu name on June 13, 2013 at 12:38 PM

Re: “The Eroding Edge of America”

@ Terry: it's not difficult to get a building permit, as long as you aren't looking for a variance. Several (8-10) houses have been built this year. But duplexes are limited to a small area near Center Street. Depends on where the lots your family has looked at are located.

1 of 2 people like this.
Posted by follitics on June 13, 2013 at 12:22 PM

Re: “The SPLC's gender assignment case comes down to civil rights”

Mat, while it appears that you are correct in "outing" an out of towner who signed up for this site just because of an axe to grind, I am confused as to why you don't attempt to prove your "civil liberties/rights violation" accusation.

4 of 5 people like this.
Posted by gnu name on June 13, 2013 at 12:14 PM

Re: “The Agenda: Rainey-Haley suit dismissed; Cruise case progresses; CARTA starts free airport-area service”

My understanding is that the Aviation Authority and Boeing are footing the bill and CARTA is just providing the service.

0 of 1 people like this.
Posted by nofaith on June 13, 2013 at 12:08 PM
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