TO THE EDITOR:
When considering individuals from history, it is often easy to conflate our possession of superior knowledge with the possession of a superior morality. By time and sepia alike, we are distanced from the alumni of UNC’s Confederate years.
But if the students who seek Sam’s removal would pause for but a moment, they would realize that they themselves wear jeans made in Mexican maquiladoras, use electronics soldered by the hands of Chinese political prisoners or perhaps treat themselves with medications first trialed on the impoverished and illiterate Dalits of India.
Do students like Levin realize that they regularly consume goods as morally tainted as the plantation produce of the antebellum South? Could they truly face one of UNC’s Confederate dead and claim to be the better? Could they cast the first stone?
Rather, what must be understood in any discussion regarding Silent Sam’s presence on campus, is that UNC’s Confederate dead did not necessarily form ranks in defense of slavery any more readily than we ourselves would form ranks in order to perpetuate the injustices of our time.
The reasons Confederate soldiers fought were varied and sometimes parochial, and the condemnable motives of the Confederacy’s wealthy slave owners should not sweepingly deny UNC’s fallen the respect they deserve for being stubborn “Tar Heels” on the battlefield, just as the machinations of former Vice President Dick Cheney and his cronies should not prevent us from giving respect and support to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of whom study among us.
I agree that a statue installed by proponents of racism and the guardians of a racist legacy shouldn’t form such a salient and defining feature on our campus, but without an actionable and alternate plan for how to best memorialize the 321 alumni killed in the war, removal of the statue will serve as a dangerous precedent, and allow for the disownment of other UNC veterans who served in controversial conflicts.
Roderick Flannery
GIS Certificate Program
