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Alabama Councilman's actions rooted in ignorance

Larrry

Well-known member
Councilman's actions rooted in ignorance


Randy Young


Every April, many of my friends and I gather at cemeteries across the South to decorate the graves of our Confederate ancestors with small battle flags to commemorate their service to the South. Many of those men made the ultimate sacrifice for their families, for their homeland, and we feel the least we as family members can do is show our respect for their efforts by placing those flags once a year.


It isn’t done to hurt anyone. It isn’t done out of anything other than a sense of honor and respect. And it normally is done one lone time a year, normally corresponding with Confederate Memorial Day ceremonies held annually in April.

Every now and then, someone comes along and destroys some of the grave flags. That’s expected because there is so much basal ignorance surrounding the Confederacy and, especially, that embattled flag. Some people manifest that ignorance by destroying our honorable displays.

Last week, a city councilman in Auburn, Ala., raised that manifestation to a new level. Arthur C. Dowdell took it upon himself to go through Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn and pull the memorial flags off the graves there, even breaking some of them, because they “offended him.”

Mary Norman watched Dowdell pull up a flag placed on her great-grandfather’s grave and snap it in half, she said.

Dowdell was picking up his daughter from school near the cemetery when several people told him they “had a problem” with the flags. He drove to the cemetery and started pulling up flags, he admitted.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy placed the flags earlier this week, just as they have done for more than 50 years, in preparation for a celebration Sunday of Confederate Memorial Day, Norman said. Confederate Memorial Day is a state holiday in Alabama, as it is in most Southern states.

“I’m a historian,” Norman added. “We’re not about hate. We’re not about anything like that. We just want to honor our state’s rights, and I’ve got Confederate ancestors, and I feel we should have the right to do that.”

Make note of the fact that the plots in question are deeded plots, which means they are sold to the families in question. In essence, that makes the grave sites private property.

That being the case, my question is simple: Didn’t this man, who suddenly anointed himself the judge and the jury, at the very least break the law by stealing and destroying private property, and in turn disturb a privately owned gravesite? Seems pretty clear that the answer is a resounding yes to all of the above.

Not so quick, says the City of Auburn, which released a statement stating that the matter is not criminal at all, but is a “matter between private citizens.” In other words, we’re too whipped by political correctness to do what we know is right in this case, so we’ll just bow out like the wimps we are.

So what happens now? You guessed it. The damned KKK, ignored and hated by whites and blacks alike, has decided that it needs to make a showing in Auburn to protest, which, of course, will fulfill Dowdell’s wish to make the flag appear as little more than a weapon in a hatemongers arsenal.

I have to wonder what purpose was Dowdell really trying to serve with his actions? In his stated desire to “fight” bigotry and “racism,” he has resurrected the very essence of what he supposedly opposes.

When those who should act in such cases don’t (or won’t), it opens the door for roaches to come out of the night and feast on the rot left exposed. A little backbone could have gone a long way in this case.

Right will always be right, and wrong will always be wrong. I just don’t see anything right with pilfering something from anyone’s grave.

http://www.timesenterprise.com/opinion/local_story_118202315.html
 
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