US Opinion and Commentary

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Focus of South Carolina Massacre Turns to Confederate Flag

Posted June 23rd, 2015 at 1:50 pm (UTC-5)
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As the mourning continues for the nine African Americans killed execution-style by a young white man, sentiment is growing for the removal of the Confederate flag in South Carolina, site of the massacre. The flag is a relic of the U.S. Civil War, fought 150 years ago over the issue of the enslavement of black people. It may be appropriate that the state in which the Civil War’s first shots were fired is the starting ground for the movement to take the Confederate flag down.

An Uncomfortable, Yet Unavoidable, Debate

Posted June 22nd, 2015 at 3:04 pm (UTC-5)
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With the shooting of nine African Americans by Dylann Roof, an avowed white supremacist, the nation’s unresolved and tormented history of racism has emerged. It remains a controversial hot-button topic: painful, hard to talk about and even harder to stop. But observers are increasingly calling for a movement to banish it.