I say take the Confederate flag down from the South Carolina capital. It is offensive to blacks. It traumatizes them and keeps them from achieving. It is also responsible for the high rate of drug use in the black community, as well as the high crime rate. Also, it is responsible for the terribly high illegitimacy rate and the high rate of AIDS in the black community.

How do I know this? Because, removing the flag is the most important issue facing the NAACP, and they are the guardian of what’s good for the black community in America. They have descended on South Carolina with all of their muscle.

If we are really serious about helping blacks, we should also remove our national flag, Old Glory, from the nation’s capital because for some 75 years it flew over a nation that sanctioned slavery. This should raise the achievement level of black children by a significant margin.

Also, if we would remove the flag of The Netherlands from the United Nations buildings, the crime rate in the black community would go down. After all, the Dutch were very big in the slave trade in the 1700s, so this should relieve a lot of trauma.

And, if we want to help get the terribly high illegitimacy rate down, we could remove from the United Nations buildings the flags of all those African countries who practiced slavery during this period -- after all they were the ones who sold the ancestors of our black citizens into slavery in the first place.

We white Southerners ought to thank the NAACP for calling this to our attention. I, for one, had no idea that all of the severe problems in the black community could be solved by simply removing flags.

With these actions the NAACP could dissolve itself, and Kweisi Mfume can go back to Philadelphia and celebrate with his former gang members.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this organization would use its considerable talent and dedication to solve the really important problems?

Jim Jackson is a retired NASA executive who writes about community matters. Some of his articles are accepted for publication in The Huntsville Times; some are not. This one was not.