TO THE EDITOR:
I was wondering if anyone involved in this frenzy to do away with all Confederate memorials has set a date for how far they will go back to get all the reminders of slavery off the earth? The Confederacy was 150 years ago. I hear people fussing about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They both owned slaves about 250 years ago so that means nothing they did was worth anything. People have complained about the way Christopher Columbus treated the natives when he arrived, so we have to do away with anything that honors him. Now we have gone back 500 years.
Following this logic we would have to ban all Bibles. The apostle Paul once sent a runaway slave back to his master. If Paul condoned slavery there goes three-fourths of the New Testament. Now we have gone back 2,000 years. The entire Old Testament is based on the Abrahamic Covenant. Abraham not only owned slaves, he had a child with one of the household slave women. Now we have gone back some 5,000 years.
Now that we have gone back to ancient times, let's not forget about the pyramids of Egypt. That is the ultimate use of slave labor. What about the Roman Coliseum? It is the site where slaves were made to kill each other purely for the entertainment of the elites in the society. Should the Coliseum and Pyramids be destroyed? After getting rid of all these reminders will anyone's life be any better? We cannot put our 21st Century culture on the people of the past. We need to change our attitudes and actions toward each other instead of concentrating on some pieces of stone and street signs.
Deborah Miller
Wake Village, Texas