Waking up to pain caused by Confederate flag

A letter writer is mistaken to think that it was ever fine to display the Confederate flag — the battle flag of the Southern states that was flown during their armed attempt to destroy the union.

South Carolina’s attack on Fort Sumter started the Civil War. The casus belli was the refusal of Southern states to abolish human slavery.

At the very best, flying the Confederate flag was tolerated until recently by a white majority that was oblivious to the feelings of our black citizens. The mindless murder of nine black worshipers in a South Carolina church by a white supremacist coward who was fond of flying the Confederate flag made displaying the flag so toxic and noxious that it is no longer tolerated (unless you want to identify yourself as a racist, that is).

Thanks to the unceasing efforts of Black Lives Matter and others, white Americans are waking up to the pain that this flag has caused.

It wouldn’t harm anyone to show a little kindness and to treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves.

Tom Baker

Amherst

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