A.D. CARSON MAKES A STIR DOWN SOUTH

Springfi eld native A. D. Carson has been making headlines for his activism in South Carolina, bringing attention to the racist legacy of Clemson University, where he is working on his Ph.D. in English. Carson, one time writer-in-residence at Benedictine University and English teacher at Springfi eld High School as well as a published author and recording artist, wrote a post on dailykos. com last month saying that it was only after arriving on campus that he became aware that Clemson’s grounds were once the plantation of former U.S. vice president, secretary of state and slave owner John C. Calhoun (the main house still stands, a provision in Calhoun’s will), along with the fact that the school’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs is named for avowed segregationist Strom Thurmond and that the school has an academic hall named for former South Carolina Governor Benjamin R. Tillman, a white supremacist. In response, Carson has begun the “See the Stripes” campaign, exemplifi ed in a poem he wrote pointing out the irony in Clemson’s football team, named the Tigers, traditionally being honored by fans wearing “solid orange” when tigers themselves are striped by defi nition. Carson sees a parallel between the lash marks left on the backs of slaves and the tiger stripes which Clemson’s “Solid Orange” tradition implicitly erases. According to Carson’s dailykos. com piece, “Because we are The Tigers, I’d like for us to, along with the Orange we wear with such pride, think of The Stripes we so easily forget or neglect to acknowledge.” Carson says that he has no desire to simplistically castigate the school, only to acknowledge the ugly parts of its history. David Woodard, Clemson professor of political science for the Thurmond Institute, has responded to the campaign by labeling Carson a “fascist.” Carson’s “See the Stripes” video can be viewed at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=tl1cSgbnZTo