Confederate Flag Is Mark of Shame

The Crimson's recent article on "regionalism" seemed insidiously to equate the Confederate flag with Buffalo wings, surf boards and football games as quaint symbols of regional pride ("Like Race, Regionalism Can Be Cause for Bias" news feature, Nov. 28). It is time we put an end to this nonsense.

The Confederate flag was the battle flag for a revolt against the Constitution in the name of slavery. To present it, as Bridget Kerrigan '91 does, as a symbol of "Southern honor and grace and dignity," is perverse. To pretend that those who oppose the display of the Confederate flag are merely displaying a regional bias against Southerners is equally perverse.

Kerrigan asks "why people can server the negative connotation from every flag except" hers. One might answer that hers alone commemorates a bloody attempt to break up our country in order to protect a system of human bondage.

The Confederate Flag is a symbol not of the American south, but of the Confederate south. As such, it should be a mark not of southern pride, but of southern shame. --Jeffrey Collins   Ph.D. Candidate   Department of History