Mississippi has absurd quandary
Regarding the Times editorial (Aug. 20) “Learning from the past”:
Here we are, 147 years after the end of the Civil War, a war that we should all be grateful the South did not win, and Mississippi state officials are wondering how best to honor their Civil War dead soldiers without offending their (living) black citizens? What a ridiculous, self-imposed quandary!
I was not aware that Mississippi still has the Confederacy battle emblem on its state flag. For real? Hey guys, how ’bout joining the 21st century? The Faulkner quote about the past never really being dead certainly has some relevance, but I’m not sure it’s the past that’s doing the haunting in Mississippi. Seems to me that too many Mississippians like resuscitating their Civil War ghosts. It’s one thing to remember the past; it’s another to keep resurrecting and glorifying it.
If you want to honor anybody, honor the forefathers and mothers of the black citizens who suffered the brutality to which our white forefathers subjected them.
And as for that Confederate battle emblem on your flag, don’t you think it’s high time you removed it and relegated it to a history museum, where it more appropriately belongs?