When I moved to South Carolina some 12 years ago, I was delighted by how welcoming all y'all were. I was loathe to believe all those nasty things we Yankees had assumed about racism and closed-mindedness.
Of late I have come to understand those negative stereotypes.
It is here in South Carolina that primary voters raced to the polls to support a man who believes poor parents are lazy and do not provide good work models for their children. While no longer openly advocating work houses and orphanages for the children of the poor, he proudly presented his solution to the problem of raising lazy children: put them to work in the schools as janitors.
I don't know about you, but when my children were small, I was busy finding every learning opportunity I could get my hands on for them. I had dreams of violinists, writers, scientists -- award winners both of them. And when Barack Obama ran for office in 2008, he allowed people mired in poverty to begin to have those dreams for their children again.
So I don't blame Newt for being ignorant and manipulative, he is who he is. What I am offended by is the voters of this state who applauded those ugly ideas, and who look forward to a day in this country when the poor are put in their place and when we middle class whites can get back to comfortably being in control.
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