What to do about Hilton Head ‘plantations’? Action, not words | Letters
What to do about the word “plantation” is not important. Starting a conversation that leads to meaningful action is important.
It is just as wrong to characterize a neighborhood by preconceived notions of a word as it is to characterize people by the color of their skin.
After the conversation starts, move quickly to actions that address real issues.
How many school children could not keep up during COVID-19 sequester measures due to no computer access, or no internet access?
In what way can parents depending on two incomes and available child care not be faced with eviction because one suddenly had to care for the children full time?
How can I as a person broaden my circle of friends so that I really get to know those of a different race or heritage?
The people of Hilton Head Island are oriented toward meaningful action.
Extending water and sewer to underserved neighborhoods is meaningful.
Highlighting the rich Gullah-Geechee culture and the story of perseverance in the face of an immensely hard life brings honor to the ancestors of our Native Islanders.
Do something more than waste time on debating whether the word “plantation” is good or bad.
Full disclosure, I am a resident of Hilton Head Plantation.
Toney Mathews
Hilton Head Island
A lot wrong with plans for Bay Point Island
Let’s see. About 50 eco-tourism “huts” built on Bay Point Island. The whole island in a potential flood zone. A moderate hurricane with landfall between Hilton Head Island and Savannah providing complete inundation with a storm surge, leaving ruined and possibly abandoned structures.
There will be a sewage collection pipeline to a sewage package plant handling somewhere around 6,000 to 8,000 gallons per day, discharging into small tidal creeks with a system operator remotely located on the mainland. The system is powered by generators or solar power.
Or each hut, with lot boundaries close to a shoreline, will have a septic tank system to absorb sewage so that it doesn’t flow or seep into the surrounding waters. All of which have one of the highest water quality classifications for shellfish harvesting in the state.
What could possibly go wrong?
Andy Kinghorn
Beaufort
Wake up! Wear a mask
I’m not sure how a medical issue like wearing a mask in public became a politicized “freedom” issue (thank you Fox news), but the inconsiderate people who won’t wear a mask have taken my freedom to do business overseas.
No other country wants to allow Americans in because we can’t seem to flatten our virus curve.
When I see gatherings of people not taking precautions to protect others, it’s not only disrespectful, its selfish.
Wake up, people.
Scott Lemen
Hilton Head Island
Church bells ring in remembrance of Emanuel 9
I want to share with your readers how members of our community are showing solidarity and remembrance for victims of violent crimes. We can all take one step at a time to make our voices and bells heard for an end to racial injustice.
On Wednesday, the fifth anniversary of the shooting of the nine persons at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, members of Christ Lutheran Church and members of other faith communities on Hilton Head Island, gathered at noon to remember these victims of racial violence.
Using brass handbells from the church, those gathered rang bells along the bike path for nine minutes, one minute for each victim. Others held signs that read: “Ringing in Remembrance of the Emanuel 9.” The pastor of Christ Lutheran, Mary Anderson, closed with a prayer.
Houses of worship were encouraged to ring their bells as a sound of lament and hope around the state of South Carolina at this time.
For more information, contact the Rev. Anderson.
Kathy Reynolds
Hilton Head Island
Port Royal’s Bob Bender unforgettable
I recently read with great sadness about the passing of Bob Bender.
My wife, Kathy, and I moved to the Lowcountry from Chicago in 2000 upon my early retirement and settled on Callawassie Island. Having spent my career as a chemist in the printing industry for over 37 years, I decided to become a professional wildlife and landscape photographer as a second career.
I subsequently joined the Beaufort Art Association when it was in the former bank building on Port Royal. One of the first people I met was this unique, thin, soft-spoken “hippie” with a ponytail and a love of all things fish and water. It was obviously Bob. We became fast friends and remained so even after my move to Bluffton and subsequent move to Richmond in 2018.
I will never forget my visits to Bob’s home in the historic district in Beaufort with the assorted fish tanks on the first floor, or the Lowcountry Estuarium in Port Royal. He never tired of his devotion to the environment and life.
He loved my photography and asked on numerous occasions if I would photograph a fish tank or some other item of importance to him. I could never say no.
I’m sure Bob is up there somewhere in the “hippie” van following a dream. “God bless” to one of the most unforgettable people I ever knew.
Edmund T. Funk
Henrico, Virginia
Each of us can right injustices
In the summer of 1963, I was about to enter sixth-grade. My Air Force family had just moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Montgomery, Alabama. An all-Black crew helped us unpack.
Seared into my memory from that summer is a moment when the crew chief (and owner of the moving truck) asked me to go to the local burger joint to buy lunch for his crew since they wouldn’t be served.
Elsewhere in Montgomery, I saw “Colored Only” drinking fountains and rest rooms, and experienced segregation in restaurants and on buses.
Martin Luther King Jr gave a speech in 1967 at Stanford University which was prescient. In it, he said:
“… as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”
We’ve come a long way since 1963, but not far enough. Changing our nation’s culture is hard. Really, really hard. Many are trying. I’m one of them. But it takes strong leaders – like Martin Luther King Jr. – at every level and on both sides of the racial spectrum and the ideological divide.
As we learn more about George Floyd, it appears that he was – in his own small way, and in spite of his own life’s challenges – trying to do just that. I suggest we should all use this inflection point in history to reflect on what we’re doing to contribute to righting racial injustice.
Craig Whelden
Bluffton
‘Regular people’ can dislike Trump
A recent writer states President Donald Trump is “liked by regular people.” Made me wonder – am I a regular person? I’ve been referred to as a regular guy. Does that qualify?
Who determines if you’re a regular person? Is there a committee? And who decides who’s on the committee? Are there educational requirements? Quotas for race and religion? Income? Sex? I think those on the committee should be politically independent – swing voters. Maybe Joe Cunningham decides. He’s very independent.
I disagree with the president on many issues. Maybe that means I’m not as regular as I think. I don’t support his effort to revert to coal at the expense of streams, air quality, and ratepayers.
I don’t like when he berates and fires career public servants because they’re adhering to a law he dislikes.
I disagree with removing all $300 million from the budget for remedial reading.
I agree with the EPA and the local utility: there’s a water shortage. The president says no, and wants to repeal “water sense” regulations conceived by the Bush administration. In fact, he’s reducing the EPA budget 25% in 2021. Do regular people agree with that?
We lost many fighting the Nazis. The president did say there that “were very fine people, on both sides” of a neo-Nazi/white supremacists rally. I hope regular people don’t think white supremacists and Nazis are OK.
Since I disagree with the president on these issues, does the writer consider me not “regular”?
Jon Peluso
Sun City
Trump’s record is far from that of a ‘trainee’
A recent letter called President Donald Trump a business trainee.
Before COVID-19 hit, Trump inherited President Barack Obama’s economy, which was a disaster. Trainee Trump cut taxes, resulting in corporations building new factories, generating jobs, and returning to the U.S. The economy and stock market exploded. Confidence was at a 17-year high. We had the lowest unemployment, especially for Blacks, Asians, Hispanics and women.
He killed Obama’s small-business regulations. We became energy independent by removing Obama’s regulations on fracking and oil drilling. He re-negotiated trade with China, Mexico, Canada and other countries.
Trump will make our economy great again.
The letter calling Trump a trainee mistook him for Democratic administrations. For example, the California Democrats attempted building a high-speed rail line in 12 years at a cost of $33 billion. The project was never completed; the project was 13 years behind schedule and $44 billion over budget.
The big dig in Boston started in 1991 to be completed in 1998 at a cost of $2.6 billion. It was completed Dec. 31, 2007 at a cost of $14.8 billion.
In 1980, New York City Democrats had an ice skating ring built in Central Park, which couldn’t make ice. After six years and costing $13 million, they wanted to start over. The 39-year-old Trump took over the construction and was given six months and $3 million to complete the project. Trump finished in four months at 25% below budget and didn’t charge the city.
Our country could use more trainees like Trump.
Vince Sgroi
Bluffton
Trump builds his political career on racism
President Donald Trump’s former defense secretary, Gen. Jim Mattis, has called Donald Trump the first president in his lifetime “who does not even pretend to try” to unite us. No one should be surprised. Trump has built his entire political career on racial division.
In 1990, when Trump first tested the waters for his political ambitions, he made a splash by buying a full-page ad in four major New York newspapers. That ad blasted the “Central Park Five,” young Blacks who were accused of beating and raping a female jogger.
“Bring back the death penalty!” Trump’s ad screamed. Had Trump had his way, the “Five” could be dead now. Instead, they were subsequently exonerated by a confession from the actual perpetrator, who provided DNA and other evidence. Instead of apologizing, in his usual Trump-speak, Trump said a “settlement doesn’t mean innocence.”
Next, Trump joined the challenge to the legitimacy of our first Black president, championing the despicable birther campaign against Barack Obama.
In Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, he slandered Hispanic immigrants, claiming they were rapists and bringing in drugs and crime. He made the wall his signature campaign promise, and that wall remains a fitting symbol for his divisiveness.
After the violence at the neo-Nazi, alt-right “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Trump asserted there had been “very fine people on both sides.” That is to say, among the racists and among the anti-racists. It’s no surprise that David Duke and other white supremacists see Trump as their defender.
Raymond Dominick
Bluffton
Trump what a nation of clueless sheep needs
We’re fast becoming a nation of gutless, clueless, sheep being led to slaughter. The number of individuals cognizant of the dangers are decreasing.
COVID-19 and George Floyd are examples of current over-reactive tendencies.
Everyone, regardless of political party or racial makeup, agrees the Floyd incident was horrible, unnecessary and that changes need to be made. But this situation has long since strayed from social justice into complete, unrelated anarchy.
COVID-19 is a concern, but people riding their bike and jogging in wide open spaces wearing masks is humorous and sad.
Wimpy parents are raising wimpy children, institutions of learning teach socialism and we’ve become so politically correct we cannot truthfully say someone is a drain on society without being labeled insensitive.
Needing surgery, I’d care little if the surgeon was black, white, gay, straight or had lousy bedside manners. I just want a great surgeon.
President Donald Trump may seem crass and insensitive and like a bull in a China shop to some, but Trump is the surgeon we need at this time in our country’s history.
While not agreeing with everything he does, the alternative scares me to death.
Therefore, I will be wearing my Trump 2020 hat, politically incorrect T shirt and carrying my licensed firearm more in public as one of my freedoms. Don’t try and knock my hat off my head. No brag, just fact. Otherwise, I am just a peaceful, loving guy who wants no trouble.
Gary Stough
Hilton Head Island
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