Feeding frenzy of cultural cleansing: Opposing view

The only good reason I can think of to remove the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina Capitol grounds would be to remove it from its role as a convenient scapegoat for those who will accept it only as a symbol for their narrow, sanctimonious and politically correct views.

According to a recent NBC online survey, the nation is split down the middle on the issue. You would not know that if you'd been watching the relentless vilification and vituperation directed at that historic battle flag of long ago.

But after the act of unspeakable evil in Charleston, decisions on historical issues are suddenly being made in a climate of anger, grief and political opportunism.

The use of the battle flag by racists has overwhelmed any sense of the context or intention or purpose of its many meanings. This is dangerous and Orwellian territory.

All of us who honor that flag as a symbol of our ancestors' courage are being tarred with the same brush as the deluded white supremacist coward Dylann Roof.

In an atmosphere of grief and shock, politicians are exercising political expediency and calling it political "courage."

About 70 million Americans are descended from the Confederacy. All of my folks fought for the South, making a record of valor rarely equaled in the annals of warfare. They are our flesh and blood. I understand them and honor them in the context of their times. And as one deeply involved in the civil rights movement, I am proud that my native land has gone from segregation and Jim Crow to become home to some of the nation's fastest-growing economies. Blacks and whites together have built the Sun Belt.

Black families are returning South in record numbers, back from last century's Great Migration to the North and West. They say that the quality of life here is better, as are race relations. "Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul," said Mark Twain, once a Confederate soldier. This feeding frenzy of cultural cleansing will not erase any scars nor heal any wounds. It is a mistake of historic proportions.

Former congressman Ben Jones, D-Ga., is the volunteer national spokesman for The Sons of Confederate Veterans.