TO THE EDITOR:
Things are rarely as simple as we’d like them to be, and how to deal with the fact that our state once fought on the losing side of a war centered on slavery is no exception. But as intelligent, reasonable members of the University, we should strive to understand complexity, not oversimplify it.
I know some of the “White Southerners Who Defend the Confederate Flag” are guilty of this as well. One of them told me over Independence Day weekend “the Civil War wasn’t about slavery” but rather states’ rights. And while it is true that “states’ rights” were an umbrella, the single largest thing under it was slavery’s legality.
Less than half of free Southern families in the 1860 census owned slaves — and only 28 percent in North Carolina. To many who took up their new nation’s call to war, keeping their slaves was not the reason they fought — and we shouldn’t forget their willingness to lay down their lives, misguided though it may have been.
But to their modern descendents, that flag and Silent Sam-like monuments are a way to remember their loss. For some, the Confederate flag is a way to celebrate Southern culture, with one of the only flags the South ever raised as a whole. I’d wager that at least a majority of flag wavers, if not an overwhelming majority, would be opposed to slavery, racism and the AME shooting.
Of course, flags can change. Our nation’s flag adds a star for each new state. The United Kingdom’s is actually a combination of flags for Scotland, England and Ireland.
There is no reason a Confederate flag can’t change to reflect the people who live here now, all of whom should feel comfortable to call themselves Southerners and identify with such a flag. Admittedly, I don’t think any version of the Confederate Battle Flag should be that flag. But judging that piece of cloth by Dylann Roof, the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazis seems much like judging the crucifix by Timothy McVeigh or the Westboro Baptist Church.
Scott Neidich
Graduate Student
