Around 100 people, many of them college students, gathered in the Pope Banquet Hall on Mississippi University for Women’s campus Monday night for a forum on the state flag.
The forum was put together by the Student Government Association on campus. It began at 6:30 with a brief lecture on the history of Mississippi state flags from local historian Rufus Ward. But it was after the lecture was over that students had the chance to share their opinions on the flag and ask questions about it.
Following the June 17 shooting of nine African American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, governments, institutions and even retailers have been under pressure to remove instances of the Confederate flag. Several universities in Mississippi, including the University of Mississippi, have decided not to fly the state flag because it contains the Confederate Battle Flag emblem. MUW still flies the flag, but members of the faculty and student government said they want to get a discussion going among students and faculty members so that they, rather than the administration, can decide whether the flag should still fly.
The purpose of the forum was to promote civic duty and to get students discussing their ideas with each other, said SGA media coordinator Ashmita Bhandari, a sophomore. Bhandari, who grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal, said she learned a lot about the history of Mississippi at the forum just from listening to Ward’s brief lecture. She thought the other students felt the same way and were being respectful of each other’s opinions.
“They are here to learn … They are trying to learn more about what people’s opinions are,” she said.
Following Ward’s lecture, the students, who had seats assigned to them by the SGA, had discussions with each other at their tables. Many of the students who spoke disagreed with each other, but said they learned something or got a different perspective from other students. Allison Yarborough said it was another student at her table, Diana Diaz, who pointed out to her that a flag is supposed to unite people, which the Mississippi state flag is not doing.
Still, Yarborough thinks Mississippi voters should decide whether or not to keep the current state flag.
“It’s up to the state and whatever the state decides as a whole should be the outcome,” she said.
After the discussions, the SGA gave students the opportunity to go to microphones and ask questions or make comments. At least 15 students got to their feet to be heard.
Why would the flag contain the emblem of the losing side of the Civil War rather than the winning side? Why would the state flag’s emblem honor a movement that rebelled against the country? Why worry about the flag — a piece of cloth — when the state has so many more pressing problems? Why officially fly a symbol that offends such a large group of people? These were just a few of the questions students voiced at their turns at the mic.
When senior Tamara Rutledge stood up at the mic, she pointed out that flags represent ideas. Did people want to fly a flag that represents slavery and oppression to so many people? After all, she pointed out, the state wouldn’t fly a flag with a swastika on it.
“A lot of people were saying, ‘It’s just cloth’,” Rutledge told The Dispatch after the forum was over. “But that represents the ideals of the people and a lot of these ideals aren’t good.”
University president Jim Borsig told students at the end of the program that the flag wasn’t going anywhere – for now.
“This is about a lifetime of political action and involvement,” Borsig said.
Borsig impressed on the students the importance of becoming involved in debates and about registering to vote.
“It is a reminder that we have got work to do,” Borsig said.
The flag encourages people to talk about issues like the history and racial reconciliation, Borsig said. Though he said he thinks the flag ought to be changed, he wanted the students to make up their own minds about it.
Junior Antonius Brown, junior Andrew Benton and alumna Allie Benton all sat at the same table listening to Borsig and others’ opinions. They discussed the flag among themselves. All had differing opinions – Brown thinks the flag should change, Allie Benton thinks it is a piece of history and should remain and Andrew Benton thinks it should be put to a vote. But all three said they’d learned something from the forum and all three shook hands at the end of the night.
The Student Government hopes to do more events like the forum in the future.
“We had a good turnout, so we know people are interested in this topic,” Bhandari said.
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