Editor, Commonwealth:
A group of innocent worshipers meets together to pray and is murdered by a crazed assassin.
This type of thing happens in other parts of the world with increasing frequency, and, while it is shocking to behold, it is only when it occurs in our own backyard that we are immediately outraged and terrified that it could happen to us.
Especially disturbing to us in Mississippi is that it happened in South Carolina, a state that is very much like our own.
What can we do?
Who is to blame?
Is it the easy access of guns, is it a lack of funding for mental health programs, or is it a country that is still racially divided on many levels?
In true American fashion, we have settled upon a symbol rather than the substance of this matter as the solution to the problem.
“Take down the Confederate battle flag.”
That will fix it.
How the enemies of America are amused!
In truth, every flag that flies near our state Capitol has a long and bloody history.
Pull out your history books and see whose blood is on the flags that have flown over our state.
Will removing a flag solve the problems of violence, ignorance, racial discord or poverty in our state and country? If I thought the answer were yes, I’d say take them all down.
The truth is more difficult to grasp.
The words of the prophet Micah give us a better solution to this dilemma: “He hath shewed thee O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8)
This prescription is much harder to follow than raising or lowering a flag.
Sen. Lydia Chassaniol
Winona
