Which flag represents you?
Dear editor:
The purpose of a flag is to indicate identity. We hoist Old Glory, salute it and pledge our allegiance because it says who we are — Americans. That’s true of every nation and denomination. People display these pieces of cloth with their various symbols to say, “This is who I am!” Religions, clubs, nearly every organization has a flag for their members to rally around.
At the brink of America’s Civil War, the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, said in his famous Cornerstone Speech that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the Negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral truth.”
Yes, there were other issues for which the Confederate States chose to leave the Union, but slavery was the overwhelming reason. To say otherwise is a lie!
So flying a Confederate flag says this about you. “I believe the Negro is not equal to the white man. Slavery is the Negro’s natural, normal condition.”
In my opinion, displaying that flag in America is the same as the swastika in Germany. It’s a reminder of an ugly part of our nation’s history. A time when it was OK to shackle someone of another color — or religious preference — and torture them, make them toil for you, rape them and kill them when they are no longer of use to you.
What angers and disgusts those of us who protest flying the Confederate flag is not the flag itself. It’s the fact that those waving it believe what it stands for. They are saying, “Some people are less than others because of the color of their skin.” That is disgusting!
In order to move forward together as a nation, the old symbols of white supremacy must come down. Not to erase history, but to put it in its true perspective. America’s cornerstone rests on “We hold these truths to be self evident. All men are created equal.” That’s what the American flag stands for.
So those of you who drive through town with the Confederate flag on one side of your pickup and the American flag on the other, which flag represents who you are? Bud Kenny Hot Springs