Monday letters: Confederate flag not turnoff to all

In Carl Prestipino’s March 22 letter (“It’s time to remove Confederate flag”), he states, “All the fancy new buildings and school accolades don’t mean a thing when the core is still rotten.” Does that mean that the school is rotten, or the state?

I grew up here. I graduated from USC 10 years before the writer, and I’ve been completely unaware that our state and our university have been and are still “rotten.” But that’s a minor issue compared to the unstated premise that we can’t be proud of our Southern heritage and concomitantly be a Christian.

Mr. Prestipino believes the flag represents racism, i.e., the institution of slavery, but there is no “slavery” flag. Only a small percentage of Southerners ever owned slaves, but a very large percentage joined Confederate military forces and fought to the death against invasion of the homelands. They believed that the federal government had become too powerful and too intrusive and were willing to stand up for their beliefs. And almost all of them were Christians. That’s the heritage that most who support the flag are still proud of.

I live in an area that includes many folks who are frequently called “rednecks.” Rednecks, generally, are honest, hardworking, unwilling to accept handouts, strong advocates of First Amendment rights, Christian, patriotic and apt to extend a hand to anyone in need. Some of them fly the flag. I’d much rather have them as neighbors than the infrequent visitor who still thinks we’re rotten to the core because the Confederate flag is still up.

Lexington

This story was originally published April 5, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Monday letters: Confederate flag not turnoff to all."