Stacey M_ Cox (stamcox@mars.utm.edu) from 192.239.151.130 at 10/30/97 03:32PM
comment
    I would like to respond to the debate over the rebel flag. Some years ago there were strong feelings presented over a certain symbol known to us as a ying-yang. My parents and their friends had it in their heads that this was somehow a symbol relating to devil worship. They were in fact ignorant of the true meaning that within all good there lies some evil and within all evil there is some good. To me the rebel flag is nothing more than an outdated symbol that people try to use as a cornerstone for conflict. If you look up and see a rebel flag being flown, it is not the flag that angers people, it is the beliefs that are molded into the individuals flying it. This discussion has nothing to do with some silly flag, it has to do with oppressed people who need to place blame somewhere and with people who feel a need to belong and flock to any group that allows them to feel that they belong. The rebel flag waved over the confederate army in the civil war. That army fought for more issues than just slavery. The north and the south were divided because they had a lot of geographical differences. The north had more industry and the south had more agriculture. The symbolic meaning of this flag was really blown out of proportion somewhere along the way. It was very cruel how blacks were treated, but they should be rejoicing in their accomplishments, their freedom. They fought for their civil rights and they won. I feel the same way about women. We've come a long way. It's cruel that white men were the oppressors of these groups of people, but that is just the way it was. We can not change that, and we are not going to move forward until we can get past this. I'm currently reading UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, and with the turn of each page, I shed tears because it is such a deeply moving story. That is how life was for some people back then, but it is no longer that way. I just wish everybody would stop living as if it were the still the post-civil war era.