Reply #145: Refusing to lower the flag

[lfeas0n]

Thank you very much.

Sorry it took so long for me to respond. Things have been a little hectic since July 7! It looks like this thread has died out, but I thought I'd pass this response I prepared for another blog on to you since you asked. Feel free to use or ignore it how ever you feel best. Thanks again! lf

The many other e-mails, blog comments, letters, and phone calls have very supportive. Even some of the negatives have been a good difference of opinion. I’ll just answer a few of the questions that have been batted around here, ignore some, and then fade back into obscurity.

1. I am not a hero. I had the safety net of retirement. What I gave up were the plans I had to move the lab forward over the next five to seven years. We have the largest and most technical workload of any State Weights and Measures Laboratory. We were just appropriated capital funds to plan a new lab. I was really looking forward to planning and building this new facility. To me, that’s a lot to lose, but certainly not heroic.
2. The State gave up my experience. I can be easily replaced, but there will be a significant learning curve that will harm the many projects currently on going at the lab.
3. I had enough sick leave built up for full retirement and did not have to take early retirement.
4. I had no intention of receiving the amount of attention I’ve received. I’ve been interviewed by news media locally, DC, WA, CA, MS, GA, and IL. I was interviewed by the AP and NPR. I had no idea and never planned for my 15 minutes of fame (or infamy). However, given the attention, I feel I have an obligation and responsibility to do what I can to fight racism, sexism, homophobia, and the other negative polices so dear to Jesse Helms. I have the responsibility to show that all North Carolinians do not support such negative beliefs.
5. I in no way put my staff in any jeopardy. This is departmental spin to excuse a political response. In a meeting with management last week, they bounced between that story (also given to the press) and the assertion I was jeopardizing Commissioner Troxler if he did not punish me for refusing the Governor’s order. If you read my original e-mail, I gave my employees the option of simply not putting up the flag, took full responsibility for the request, and asked anyone who had a problem with it to give me a call.
6. I was on vacation that morning so it was on my own time or I would have addressed the issue directly.
7. State Government retirement comes from the 6% that has been taken out of every paycheck and put into the retirement system for the past 29.5 years. That 6% from the time I was hired @ ~$9,000 per year until last Monday plus the interest it earned is mine. That money is matched into the system by the State since some of us will live long enough to use up those funds.
8. I was given the option of staying home the two days. I do not expect those who are not responsible for management of a facility to understand the amount of ownership I had in everything that came out of that lab, good or bad, work or symbol. Yes, the flag was State property, but I was responsible for its display.
9. As manager of the lab, I am responsible. I did not feel that I could give a sign to the world in support of a man who voted against every civil rights bill, filibustered the King Holiday, sang Dixie when sharing an elevator with a black congress woman, and continues to starve the innocent people of Cuba with the Helms/Burton Act. His opposition to the King Holiday was based on exaggerated or baseless lies promoted by J. Edgar Hoover, a man who it was later revealed liked to wear women’s underwear, but whose lies have resurfaced in many of the negative comments I’ve received.
10. I’m a native of NC and very proud of my home State. Jesse Helms was a master of rallying people using his tactics of fear to push his “old south” agenda while much of the rest of the south was progressing out of the Jim Crow years. The opinion many people have of the South is based on the racist, backward image he fostered. Jesse gave people a target to blame that got him elected (just barely) five times. In the south it happened to be African Americans who were finally being recognized as human beings that he targeted and gay people he did not try to understand. In Germany, I guess it would have been the Jews. (Oh yeah, he didn’t like Jews either.) Hate is evil. Unjustified hate is even more evil, and the abuse of power to spread hate by lies may be the ultimate evil.
11. My act was one of conscience. I knew there would be consequences. I was and am still willing to accept them. However, the Governor gave the same order to lower the flags to half mast on the Memorial Day Holiday in honor of our war dead. (Both proclamations are on the Governor’s WEB site.) On the Memorial Day Holiday, I got up before sunrise and raised our flags to half mast and returned to lower them at sunset. I passed several State buildings to get to the lab and only a couple had flags flying at all. The managers of those facilities were not given the choice of retirement or firing. They disobeyed the same executive order with no punishment. Were our war dead less important than one at best, controversial man? It would seem based on this observation alone, that my forced retirement was a political act.

Maybe I answered a question or two. I know I probably didn’t change any minds, but that’s okay too. That’s one of the best features of human diversity. I just dream that there will be a day we celebrate diversity rather than fighting based on lies and misinformation.

One of the best comments I’ve been given is “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”. Standing up for something is always a responsibility. Without knowledge and facts, standing up for something is falling for anything. Regardless of what you believe about me, please speak from knowledge and truth.

Thank you,

lf