South Carolina is not Bigot Heaven

To the editors:

Austria's electoral support of the Freedom Party and South Carolina's flying of the Confederate flag have led both to be vilified. This vilification has been successful, as Jorgen Haider has resigned and the rebel flag will soon be furled in Columbia.

Yet, is South Carolina really a "symbol of intolerance and bigotry" as Christine S. N. Lewis argues in her column "Not Gone with the Wind"? (Column, April 19) The answer is no. In my time in Charleston, I have encountered far less racism than I have anywhere else.

One need only look at the murders of innocent men committed by the NYPD to see that racism is hardly just a Southern problem. And where is the protest over Al Sharpton, whose anti-Semitism and xenophobia match Haider's? It seems to me that we're concentrating on the wrong things. Instead of actually trying to fight racism in America, we fall into the same trap that people who whistle "Dixie" do: We become trapped in the past.

If we dismiss racism as nothing more than a Southern phenomenon and a lasting vestige of the Confederacy, we will never heal our national wounds. Indeed, she seems to have far less racial problems than most northern cities where racial tension often erupts into violence. We have had no police shootings in Charleston over the Confederate flag issue, no racial warfare--merely dialogue and compromise. Instead of vilifying South Carolina, perhaps we should take work out our problems through words and not bullets and hate.

Austin Gilkeson Williamsburg, Va.

April 19, 2000