As a citizen of the Northern half of our country, I have never dealt much with the symbol and significance of the Confederate flag, simply because it has never really been there for me to see. However, I have been in some situations recently where I have been exposed to it, and it raises some questions for me.

We all know that the Confederate flag was the symbol for the Southern states during our country's only internal war. I disagree with the waving of the Confederate flag, and it is not because I am ignorant of our country's history, or because I feel it has no effect on us today; it is because of the meaning it had when it was originally used.

There were many reasons that the North and the South were virtually two different entities at that point in time: finances, classes, jobs, education. Many of these examples were reasons that the Civil War began. The beliefs of each side were almost complete opposites, and the only way we saw out, I guess, was for one to conquer the other—war. However, one of the most prominent, influential, and well-known reasons for the Civil War, as we all know, was slavery.

The Confederate flag is and always will be a symbol of those Southern beliefs that we are so rightfully ashamed of today. I am not an African-American citizen, however I can only imagine that it might hit a nerve. It would, me, if my ancestors had once been subject to those shameful conditions.

Not to be ignored, the Confederate flag is also a symbol for many other things, too. Many people who are proud to live in the South wave it as a symbol of their Southern pride. Southern families may wave it in support of their roots, and the people who came before them. And even though both of these are perfectly innocent and good reasons to be proud of your geographical location, I cannot seem to understand how you can wave that flag, fully knowing what it's true meaning was when they waved it for the first time over a hundred years ago.

This past summer, I attended a country music festival. I have never seen more Confederate flags in one place in my whole life, and I saw it as almost an insult, a betrayal to one half of our country. Even more recently, there was an incident at Hope College that caused me to question the use of the Confederate flag in our society today. When dressing up as a "redneck" or a "hick," people also tend to use the Confederate flag more freely there, and that is what happened when certain individuals from a residence hall decided to do just that.

In all of these situations, I see a stereotype created. To me, it is not only an issue of stereotyping, but also an issue of degradation to those people of our country who belong to those social classes. Just because someone works in the fields all day, or lives on a farm, or is a part of the lower working class does not necessarily mean that they are from the South and are in support of the Confederacy. Why divide our country once again?

I am not here to tell you what to do, and I do not know all that there is to say on this issue, I just ask that everyone be more mindful of the image that might be given off when choosing to support a piece of our history that completely goes against the progress we have made since then.