To the editor:
When Barack Obama ran in 2008, the country was shocked at the level of racism that emerged that most of us thought had been dealt with over time.
Not gone. Not eradicated. That is likely never to happen. But through the courts and legislation, we had dispensed with laws against racially mixed marriages; with voting restrictions; segregated schools and neighborhoods; and racial discrimination in employment. We were far from being either perfect or even on an equal playing field. But we had moved forward. Except in our attitudes and our hearts. In a moving speech in Philadelphia, under attack for just being a Black presidential candidate, he said we needed a national dialogue on race. And we did. We still do.
And that community discussion on race here in Greenfield has begun in this newspaper.
D.V. Dunn wrote a response to my own letter to the editor about the “wretched Confederate flag.” He suggested that I had written a “scrambled history lesson” and offered one of his own. He wrote that I was wrong. The Civil War – and specifically the flag – was about pride and loyalty and patriotism.
D.V. Dunn is right about the antebellum South. Those "Gone with the Wind" huge manor plantations did not dominate the South; they were but a minority of folks who mostly lived in Tidewater Virginia. And their wealth gave all the political influence needed to push an entire region into a civil war. And yes, most Southerners were extremely poor! And yes, while they owned slaves, it was just enough to help till the soil, for they had no ability to own more.
And that is the point. My letter was not about the antebellum South. It was the very idea that a person – and in this specific case, white people – could own another. And for the very reason that the "other" person’s black skin deemed it to be so.
D.V. Dunn’s very description of the Confederate flag confirms this with all the references to the choices of color and arrangement and stars being of Christ and Christian symbolism. Just as the vice president of the Confederacy said it to be so that the dominance and even enslavement of the African with black skin was ordained by a divine Creator. To fly this flag means you agree with that sentiment; not that you long for crayfish and your Southern relatives.
Hancock County is growing; Greenfield is growing. Houses are being built all around us to accommodate the rapid expansion of folks moving into our community. I doubt there is a Realtor in Greenfield who, showing someone looking to move here for all the charm we want to offer, says to a potential resident when seeing that inflammatory flag flapping off the back end of a big up truck driving about town "Well, that’s just a local resident having himself a bit of fun."
As to your final statement: Do I want to live in a country that has one single flag? Yes, I do. Do you think the United States should be adopting the Confederate flag as our "other" national flag?
Betty Tonsing
Greenfield
