There is so much misinformation in your opinion I unfortunately don't have the time to correct all of it. I must say that your piece made me feel your are being bigoted and have no empathy towards people who are honestly doing what they believe is good and right towards the memory of their ancestors, family, and most important, the loss of home, a very important root-cause of the war and cornerstone of the southern culture.
The Southern mindset towards home is a type of patriotism that is anchored to a land we all love. It’s the weather, the plants, the time of day, the very ground we walk on, we are tied to it by blood. We feel history here as far as the ancient histories of the Cherokee, Choctaw and Creek. The loses our ancestors experienced and endured, not only during the Civil War, but in the 100+ years of economic suppression afterwards, unites us more solidly today than those who fought against the invaders and marauders of our sacred hearths during that war.
All the peoples of America have committed wrongs to different peoples at different times. The Mayflower Pilgrims desecrated the graves of the natives, stole their caches of food, and murdered in cold blood their leaders.
The Civil War was fought between two different economic societies, but with the exact same language, laws, and religions. The Confederacy was fighting the Union, not the North against the South, not Slave State against Free State. The Union consisted of Free and Slave states, with a population of slaves numbering nearly 350,000. The Federal Army became the largest single owner of slaves probably in the history of man when in conscripted slaves from their owners for $100 to $300 apiece. West Virginia was the last slave state admitted into the Union, by Abraham Lincoln. The contradictions to popular history are never ending.
The images of the Confederate Battle Flag or the planting of flowers on Confederate graves are not THE icons of the history slavery or the never ending issue of racism. Take these images away and it’s still there. It will always be there. We know more than any section of the country the history of slavery and racism in our history, does Massachusetts or Illinois? No, the feelings expressed here by those in opposition to the memorial to our ancestors are bigots, expressing nothing but hate towards Americans performing their Constitutional rights and who have done no harm to anyone. There are no legal protections to being offended, and I hope there never will be. less