Guest writer

To be a Southerner

Heritage shouldn’t celebrate hate

I am white, a lifelong Southerner--proud of some of my Southern heritage, and ashamed of some of it.

The principal of one of two local high schools in Fort Smith responded to the local school board's initial vote to finally remove the rebel trappings that have adorned that school since 1963 by saying "... It's amazing one situation causes such a knee-jerk reaction across the nation."

What's amazing to me, at least, is that any leader of our young people can make such a statement.

Anyone who thinks the latest groundswell against too-long celebrated symbols of the Confederacy--a flag, a mascot, a yell, a name--is caused by one "situation" is no student of history. First, these killings in South Carolina are not a situation! They are a tragedy of unspeakable proportions for, among other reasons, they are only the latest in a way-too-long line of attacks on people of color in this country--far too many in the South.

In fact, in September 1963, the very month and year the Southside Rebels opened their doors, white Southern haters bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four little, innocent black girls. Sadly, the majority of Southern white high schoolers do not even know, let alone care, about this aspect of their heritage.

Think how different it would be if the little girls had been white and the perpetrators of hate black. There would probably be a regional holiday memorializing the event at least--maybe held the same day as much of the South still celebrates Lee and Davis with holidays.

And therein lays the pity of it all. The unspeakable silence or short-lived, often well-intentioned but nevertheless so-far-vain (mostly political) "noise" that follows such events over the years has led to little if any progress on race relations in this country.

In a recent paper, I read the results of a poll showing that almost 50 percent of those polled do not think race relations in this country (let alone the world) are a problem.

Donald Trump says about Mexican immigrants: "... They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." And to my knowledge, not one in that party's race for its nomination, including two immigrants and one married to one, said a thing condemning this mindless and unforgivable bigotry.

Please, my fellow Southern white people, believe me when I say that efforts to remove symbols (like the flag of the Confederacy) and, more importantly, actual acts of hatred are not reactions to one "situation," and they sure as hell are not "knee-jerk."

(By the way, would only but a "few" of the permanently and hopelessly deranged actually even be debating the obvious right thing to do if it was the Nazi flag in a public school or over a statehouse at issue?)

They are in fact long-overdue reactions to tragedies that must be counted and accumulated, discussed rationally and holistically, acted on patriotically and perpetuated for this and future generations to become our new heritage--one which we can truly celebrate, maybe with a flag that will be a symbol of "justice for all!"

Steven A. Brigance lives in Fort Smith.

Editorial on 06/29/2015

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