Consider message sent by that flag

Why are new Confederate flags multiplying every day? Is everyone aware of South Carolina’s decision to remove the very same flag from its own capitol? Perhaps they have not heard of the shooting in Charleston that sparked the movement, where nine innocent lives were lost to a racially driven hate crime. Maybe though, the decision to fly the flag is more based in the history of the Civil War. It is, after all, the 150th anniversary of the final year of the Civil War. Perhaps it is in memory of family members who fought in that war, maybe who fought for state’s rights.

The Confederate party, though, lost the war. Eventually the flag itself took on another meaning entirely as it was used by the Ku Klux Klan as a symbol of defiance at their own pro-segregation rallies and riots. The flag became a symbol of violence.

Displaying the flag may be a way of exercising your rights, but not at the expense of reminding others that those rights have been, and often still are, conditional. The message sent is not one of your own freedom, but one of hatred, of inequality, and ignorance.

America is built around freedom, but the display of the Confederate flag only supports suppression. How can we progress forward, if so many choose to look back?

Sarah Frick Salem