Time and time again, our generation has championed equality and tolerance. Young people have fought for same-sex marriage rights, for more equitable income distribution and for further progress toward racial and gender equality.
So it seems more discordant than ever for the Confederate flag to fly at the State House as it has for years. We’ve said it before, and we’ll continue to repeat it: The flag needs to come down. It has been long enough.
But it’s important, too, to make sure that the ongoing efforts to take it down don’t bring others down with it.
That is, opposition to the flag is well justified and merited, but let’s not hurt others in the crossfire.
The NCAA has banned states that present the Confederate flag prominently — that is, South Carolina and Mississippi — from being predesignated hosts for postseason play.
The result is that a program on the rise, South Carolina’s women’s basketball team, hasn’t been able to host any NCAA tournament games. The team is expected to be a No. 1 seed in this year’s tournament, but instead of playing close to home, they’ll likely play miles, states, even time zones away.
That will change next year, when the women’s basketball tournament will the top 16 seeds a chance to start postseason play at home. If next year matches this season, that means the tournament is coming to Columbia.
That’s good news for the team, but not necessarily the effort to take down the flag.
Even though the flag will no longer hinder the women’s basketball team’s tournament schedule, the conversation about removing it should not end.
The threat to our basketball team’s postseason play certainly placed added pressure on our state to remove the Confederate flag, but a basketball team’s play is a minor consideration compared to the
hatred and hurt the flag represents for so many South Carolinians.
There’s no need to entangle the two.
The flag will eventually be taken down, perhaps when our generation takes the reins at the State House, but we hope it will happen sooner.
We understand the heritage many insist the flag represents. We more easily understand the dark history many more say it represents.
The removal of a relatively minor hindrance to a team shouldn’t mean that this conversation should fall to the wayside. It will take much more collective soul-searching and reflection for the
Confederate flag to be taken down, and that process shouldn’t stop.
In other words, it will take much more than the difference between a home game and an away game to carry out what’s long overdue.