Symbols
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Question:

Will the elimination of Confederate symbols remove the ghost of slavery?

    A most appropriate reply to the above question is supplied by Randy Young, Commander of  SCV Camp # of Tifton, GA. The following edited letter, dated Aug. 6, 2000, is his response to the editor of the Houston Newspaper in regards to an article by that newspaper concerning the issue of slavery:

Dear Editor,

  I read with great interest your story on the many Confederate symbols that are housed within the Texas capitol. I find it very interesting that those who want to obliterate all things Confederate because of their "painful" reminders of slavery are the same people who have demanded that the National Parks Service include verbage at our national battlefields explaining the role of slaves and slavery in the War Between the States. There is also an effort afoot to have comments about the slave labor, which was used to build the U.S. Capitol building, included in a plaque to be placed at the U.S. Capitol to commemorate those slaves ... which leads me to ask, "What is the difference?" Isn't one symbol as much of a "painful" reminder of slavery as the other? Or, because you choose the symbolism, does that make it less "painful?" It sounds more than a little hypocritical to me. Also, as politically incorrect as it may sound, the fact remains that every single slave that landed on American shores had already been enslaved in his native Africa before he or she arrived here. The slave trade would have been impossible if not for the tribal warlords of Africa trading their own kind for their own profit. Why is it we never hear one word of this mentioned by those who belittle all things Confederate, whose finger of blame is only pointed toward white Southerners? Is it too "painful" to admit the truth ... that their own ancestors bear much, if not most, of the responsibility of the slave trade existing in the first place? Or, does admitting this truth explode all foundations of any argument that justifies reparations, and therefore should be conveniently tucked away?

    Does anyone remember President Clinton bringing up the subject of an apology for American slavery on a visit last year to Uganda? "European-Americans received the fruits of the slave trade,"  Mr. Clinton said on a visit to the village of Mukono with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. When Museveni was asked about such an American apology, he replied: "African chiefs were the ones waging war on each other and capturing their own people and selling them. If anyone should apologize it should be the African chiefs. We still have those traitors here even today."

    Slavery is alive and well today, with over 26 million being held in bondage in Africa - far, far more than in all the Confederacy's years combined and multiplied. Where is the NAACP and its supporters in the battle to free these blood kin? Do they not know that their money, which is being wasted in trying to eradicate a proud heritage that will never be eradicated under any circumstance, could be buying their own blood out of slavery in their native land? How can the NAACP focus all of its attention and money on a symbolic issue when the people they claim to represent are fighting real issues like fatherless homes, gangs, drug abuse, poor academic performance, and teenage pregnancy every single day of their existence? I ask any person who decries the symbolism of the Confederacy to answer this single, simple question: What will removing these symbols do to substantively improve the life of one person in this nation? I will anxiously await a reply.

Randy Young Thomasville, Georgia  

Answer:

 Of course not

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