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2016 Legislative Session

Georgia lawmaker defends KKK: “not so much a racist thing”

In the same week that Georgia’s Department of Education fired a top schools official for posting racist, homophobic and anti-Muslim, a Georgia Republican lawmaker defends the Ku Klux Klan.

State Rep. Tommy Benton defended the KKK in an interview with the AJC. The Klan “was not so much a racist thing but a vigilante thing to keep law and order. It made a lot of people straighten up.”

Nathan Deal Confederate Flag
Equality, Rights & Justice Issues

Symbols of hate

[vsw id=”IfclE73gs4U” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”] Today, after flying for half a century at South Carolina’s state house, a symbol of hatred and racism finally descended a flagpole and was removed forever. South Carolina’s Republican governor was on hand to watch the Confederate flag come down, just a day after signing legislation ordering the move. Explaining her decision to sign the bill, Governor Nikki Haley said that “no one should drive by the statehouse and

Equality, Rights & Justice Issues

White supremacist website ‘slips through’ government commission

The chairman of the Georgia Civil War Commission told 11Alive reporter Doug Richards that linking to a white supremacist website from a state government Facebook page was a mistake — but it’s a mistake he can’t explain. “We’re not… trying to put anything on that Facebook page that’s racist, hurtful or in bad taste. I’m not saying something did not slip through,”chairman John Culpepper told 11Alive. And despite Culpepper’s claims that Georgia’s Civil War Commission is “not there

Equality, Rights & Justice Issues

Gov. Deal filp-flops on the Confederate flag

Yesterday, the South Carolina State Senate voted overwhelmingly to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the State Capitol. If the House of Representatives passes the measure, the flag could come down within 24 hours of Gov. Nikki Haley signing the bill. But, here in Georgia, the future of state-sponsored display of Confederate emblems is far less certain. If you think it’s hard to keep up with Gov. Nathan Deal’s position on the Confederate

Stone Mountain Carving
Race & Racism

Georgia Civil War Commission official fights ‘war to save American culture’

Georgia’s Civil War Commission is a real thing. Our state government, it turns out, runs a commission to “coordinate planning, preservation, and promotion of structures, buildings, sites, and battlefields” related to the Civil War. The vice-chair of Georgia’s Civil War commission — reappointed in 2012 by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle — is Charles Kelly Barrow. He is also the national Commander-in-Chief of the Sons of Confederate veterans. As the AJC reports, Barrow is on a war path after

Equality, Rights & Justice Issues

Kingsolver: Let the Confederate flag go

Novelist and poet Barbara Kingsolver, writing for The Guardian, offers a particularly eloquent and honest look at  the meaning of the Confederate flag in Southern culture. Her piece, “A view from the South: let the Confederate flag go” is well worth your time to read in full. Like Kingsolver, I am a Southern woman from a small Appalachian town.  I identify with her as she tackles the thorny issues of “Southern pride” and the culturally interwoven