| Published Thursday November
18, 1999 |
Memorial, not flag, honors fallen heroes
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Editor, The Auburn Plainsman:
The Confederate Flag issue is a confusing one at best. One perspective sees racism and slavery, and the other sees chivalry and “the cause.” And neither side can see the other.
I take issue with the flag because it represents one of the greatest follies this nation has ever seen. The South is odd; it is the only region in the United States that vividly remembers and celebrates a war they lost.
I was born and raised in east Tennessee. I call myself a southerner, though I have never understood this obsession with a war that murdered millions.
Supporters call the flying of the flag remembrance of fallen heroes and their own heritage. Supporters celebrate Jefferson Davis’s birthday and Confederate Memorial Day. Why celebrate a heritage of a lost war? It is simply absurd.
Let’s suppose for a moment that I have an ancestor who fought for Imperial Germany during World War I. It would seem absurd and silly for me to fly the German Imperial standard on the birthday of the Kaiser. So why does the South insist on the same absurdity?
The flag needs to stay off the dome. The state remembers its fallen at the Confederate Memorial. But, at the heart of the issue is an issue of perspective. How does Alabama wish to be perceived by the rest of the country? As a backwoods, illiterate state with a history of civil rights disturbances and absurdity? Or as a progressive state who has come to terms with its past?
The citizens of Alabama need to ask themselves what they want on their capitol. It’s up to them to decide.
Sincerely,
Isaac Bradshaw
Auburn
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