Yesterday, Governor Bryant of Mississippi (my adopted home state) proclaimed April as Confederate Heritage Month. I retorted on Clarion-Ledger's page...
The confederacy was a very small portion of Mississippi history. Was it an era to be proudly noted, no more or less than any other era of this state's history, or of other states and countries. Therefore, merely refer to April as Mississippi History Month for all state citizens.
No one era can be so lifted above others for human history is littered with continual confluences of moral, amoral and immoral intentions and deeds. Rightly viewed, societies and eras are not singularities but of many individuals of all sorts of character and action. As an example, of course Mississippi had the right thus the will to secede from an oppressive union, to reject the intrusion of a corrupt federal government. At the same time with equal emphasis, Mississippi had NO right to impose an oppression in the form of slavery upon a whole segment of society. Thus an era of Liberty regarded and exerted as a state, while Liberty disregarded and forcefully, horribly taken from many individuals. Such paradoxes fill human history to the brim.
Likewise, just as the month of April should be a time to learn of all of Mississippi's history, not just a few years of it, there should a flag that similarly represent the sentiments common to all citizens. It also a time to consider a flag without symbols of "all" violence against humanity, including those of war. That is to say, a flag without symbols of a particular era, and without swords, muskets, cannons, generals, soldiers and such. Rather, I propose a flag with symbols of unrestrained industry, free commerce, farmers in fields, assemblers in factories, builders on lots, transporters on roads, technicians, accounts, managers and investors at desks or...simply beauty in bloom.
PEACE IN MISSISSIPPI
Come let us Reason. Peace is always a choice.
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