Ignorance works both ways
By Clark Warthen
Published on Friday, January 12, 2007
To the Editor:
I was disappointed to find that prejudice and rash generalizations still reside at Dartmouth and among the campus ministry ("Words are just as harmful as 'sticks and stones,'" Jan. 10). If I may remind readers of Nicole Doyley's editorial:
"Every time I sit behind a truck with a Confederate flag on the back, I am pierced to the heart ... doesn't everyone know the sinister agenda of the Confederacy? That flag calls me nigger and denies me personhood."
I doubt very much that the citizens of Mississippi and Georgia would agree with this assertion. Both states incorporate the former Confederate flag into their state flags, and both states have black populations well over that of New Hampshire (36.8 and 29.6 percent respectively).
Ignorance works both ways. There are those who misuse the flag as a symbol of hate, and there are those who misunderstand it as such. The Civil War was not fought over slavery exclusively. At the heart of the conflict were Constitutional issues, and to relegate the deaths of 600,000 Americans to the "sinister agenda of the Confederacy" is a gross misunderstanding of basic American history.
The flag does indeed hold a complex place in American society. But to families of Confederate ancestry, it is associated with remembrance, not hatred. The vast majority of both Confederate soldiers and Southerners never owned slaves. To Ms. Doyley and those who share her opinions, I implore you: Review a history book and talk to a Southerner before you make the same rash generalizations that haunted this campus Fall term.