America: land of free expression

I’ve discovered during my years of writing columns that if you want a heated debate in our part of the Valley, any of four subjects will bring out opinions. The four subjects are race, the Confederate flag, guns and dogs. If I had to rank them in order of feedback, I’d say race and guns are tied for No. 1, followed by the Rebel flag with dogs placing fourth. A particular week’s news can sway whether race or guns stirs the anger pot the most.

The subject of guns hasn’t made headlines since mid August. Two different pro-gun demonstrators showed up at two separate events where President Barack Obama was speaking and caused a lot of discussion.

Dogs made headlines twice recently. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell permitted Michael Vick to sign with any team that wanted to take a chance on him in late July. And on Sept. 11, a Stuarts Draft kennel owner pleaded guilty to more than 100 misdemeanor animal cruelty charges.

Accusations of racism have been tossed back and forth throughout the local and national media, seemingly forever.

I’ve been called a racist in letters to the editor in The News Virginian for as long as I’ve written columns. On July 28, Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck called Obama a racist.

Some readers think I’m a racist because I bring attention to issues and examples of discrimination against people of color. Beck called the president a racist when Obama defended his friend Louis Gates after police arrested Gates for breaking into his own house.

Two weeks ago, former president and Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter made headlines. Speaking before a group of Emory University students, he said, “When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that declare that Obama should have been buried with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds.

“I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American,” Carter said.

The day before Carter said that, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted at Obama, “You lie,” during the president’s speech for a joint session of Congress. That was racist.

A week ago, two Broadway High School students were suspended for refusing to remove Confederate flag symbols from the backs of their trucks.

Saying that display of the Rebel flag is covered by free speech rights and is a symbol of Southern heritage, the two continued to display the symbols.

As you might imagine, arguments for and against displaying the Confederate flag were no different than arguments for and against charges of racism, gun control or the mistreatment of dogs.

All that I can say is, it’s great being an American where it’s OK to say what you think or believe – most of the time.

Nelson Graves, of Augusta County, is a columnist for The News Virginian. E-mail him at