The flags come down.....the news vans leave.....what happens next??

   A protester scaled a 30-foot flagpole outside the South Carolina State House on Saturday to remove the Confederate battle flag. The police identified her as a woman from Raleigh, N.C.          

 ** Credit Bruce Smith/Associated Press**

SO....What do YOU think is the next step??

I'm thinking...........
Integration, equal quality and opportunities in schools...
Equal quality and opportunities in housing and jobs....
Consistent and permanent efforts to help rebuild low-come communities of color with an eye on activities and services for youth and elders.......
Consistent and permanent quality efforts to work hard on issues of poverty, finding safe quality housing for the chronically unhoused, providing affordable long-term behavioral healthcare (mental health as well as substance use recovery support) and quality primary healthcare would be a fantastic start. 

It's trippy watching all of these conservative politicos trip over each other after being so dug-in about resistance to removing that flag.  And now, they can't get in front of the news cameras fast enough to express their dissent. 

And regardless of what Senator Graham says, removing the names of any so-called "confederate war heroes" from schools and street signs -- particularly in communities of color -- is an absolute priority.  It's an insult and a deep burn to think that people have lived their whole lives staring at those names, some perhaps having knowledge of the true, bloodied history behind them, while others are so innocently unaware.  

As I read his words on NBC this morning, I nearly choked on my coffee to see the statement -- in reference to Robert L. Lee: " If it wasn't for his leadership after the war ... only God knows what would've happened after 1865." 

Um.  Seriously??? I can think of two powerful words.  
JIM CROW.
This man was not an abolitionist.
This man did not love slaves.
This man believed that freed slaves did not have a right to vote.
This man supported the effort of Blacks leaving the United States and returning to live in Liberia, Africa because America was a country for White men.

The rebel flag may finally come down....but the attitudes that support it may remain as entrenched as ever.

Enlighten yourself and keep the dialogues going....

Food for thought:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/06/28/us/ap-us-charleston-shootings-new-south-.html

***Clockwise from top left: Susie Jackson; Sharonda Coleman-Singleton; DePayne Doctor; Ethel Lance; Daniel Simmons Sr.; Clementa Pinckney; Cynthia Graham Hurd; Tywanza Sanders

**Credit Clockwise from top left: David Goldman/AP; Jeffrey Collins/AP; Leigh Thomson/Southern Wesleyan University, via AP; David Goldman/AP (2); Grace Beahm/The Post and Courier, via AP; Adam Ferrell/The Post And Courier, via AP; Anita Brewer Dantzler, via AP