Opinions

Kudos to UAF for reversing bad decision to remove Mississippi flag

When good sense overcomes the nincompoopery of politically correct cultural cleansing in the name of "diversity," it is, well, heartening. Take the flag fiasco at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, for instance.

Exhibiting lap-dog eagerness to appease those laboring mightily to eradicate all traces of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia battle flag, the university pulled down the Mississippi state flag from a 50-state campus display because its canton depicts the easily recognizable battle flag The silly removal set off howls, including a blistering July 12 editorial from the Anchorage Daily Planet. UAF rightly reversed itself Friday.

In 1861, folks in Mississippi ardently believed secession was a right. They were not alone. It was a hotly debated, but widely held, belief. Economic and social differences with the North, slavery, states' rights, slavery's future expansion and Lincoln's election in 1860 without Southern support lighted the fuse on the War Between the States, or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on your ZIP code. Before Abraham Lincoln, who ran on a platform opposing slavery's expansion, could even take the oath of office, seven Southern states -- including Mississippi -- seceded to later form the Confederacy.

During the ensuing conflict that erupted in 1861, Mississippi flew Confederate States of America flags, although it had an official banner, the wimpy "Magnolia" flag. The flag the university pulled down was adopted in 1894 by voters, repealed in 1906, and readopted by a 2-1 margin in 2001.

It would be easy to understand dissatisfaction with Mississippi for a variety of reasons, including its troubled educational system, its poverty, its poor health care and the myriad social ills that go with all that. On lists of bad things, the Magnolia State too often ranks near the bottom, or the top. Last year, it was even seventh on the National Weather Service's list of states most likely to suffer a natural disaster.

Outgoing UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers ordered Mississippi's flag removed from Cornerstone Plaza, and not for any of the aforementioned reasons, but because of oppressive political correctness.

UAF spokeswoman Marmian Grimes was quoted in Alaska Dispatch News saying the removal was "appropriate in light of the national debate" after a crazed gunman killed nine innocent people in a Charleston, S.C., church. He had posed at some point for a photograph holding a battle flag.

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The removal was anything but appropriate. It was sad, especially at a university.

If we are to fret about the tender sensibilities of students or the public, if we are to single out a piece of cloth for past sins, if we are to be consistent, logical and unhypocritical, what about Alaska's flag? Our treatment of Alaska Natives has been too often racist and abhorrent. And Russia's flag? What about that nation's legendary brutality toward Alaska Natives? The Japanese flag should come down, too. It must shock Chinese people and veterans who remember World War II atrocities. If we are to be fair, the U.S. flag must go because of our treatment of the Irish, the Italians, the these, the those, and, of course, slavery and our brutal treatment of Native Americans.

What about the Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri flags? Nobody whines about them, but they were slave states loyal to the Union, and Lincoln exempted them from the Emancipation Proclamation as political sop. What about Florida and Alabama? Their state flags are eerily similar to Lee's battle flag. And Georgia? Its latest flag is simply the Confederacy's first flag, with "In God We Trust" and the state's seal stuck in its canton.

A few days before the UAF debacle, another Mississippi state flag was hauled down from a Juneau street after our betters signed a petition that it simply was not "welcoming."

Rogers on Friday "reluctantly" -- because of the "tone and content" of the responses to the flag's removal -- returned it to the UAF display. The flag in question, mind you, is the banner duly adopted by the people of Mississippi and if it needs to be changed why not let them decide? (Even Lee wanted his battle flag furled after the war to promote healing, but it is Mississippi's choice to make, not ours.) What Rogers sees as a symbol of racism, after all, others see as history and heritage and perhaps that discussion if overdue. Would a university not be a great place to have it?

The War Between the States is long over. It is history. Some good; some not. But it is ours and we can learn from it, understand it, use it. Hiding it, pretending that will erase wrongs more than a century old, is absurd and serves another, more sinister agenda.

A university should get that, even if reluctantly.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.

Paul Jenkins

Paul Jenkins is a former Associated Press reporter, managing editor of the Anchorage Times, an editor of the Voice of the Times and former editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

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