I'm a 21-year-old white female. I was born and raised in what some consider a "southern" state. I am not a white supremacist, neo-Nazi, die-hard protesting conservative, or a member of any organizations mimicking that of the KKK.

In my mind, it does not matter if the color of your skin is white, black, yellow, green, or purple. I do not care who you marry, either. Everyone is different, it’s part of what makes the world go ‘round.

I am very aware that I am swimming in dangerous waters with this article. People are very passionate about their beliefs, whether they’re political, religious, or personal. Our country has seen a lot of disagreement, to say the very least, in the last few years.

I have mentally prepared myself for the backlash to come, because unfortunately we live in a time where people feel it’s okay to put down others via social media. I do not like discussing politics, in fact I dread it. However, this issue is becoming increasingly harder for me to understand as the anger continues to escalate throughout the country.

I suppose I’m writing to those who are helping to tear down and vandalize confederate monuments and statues, as well as those who want to remove all aspects of confederate history from the public eye. We've had some horrible times in terms of equality during the duration of our country’s existence. Let’s see, there was slave labor in early times which proceeded for many hundreds of years.

Women were not always equal and still aren't seen as equals at times. There have been issues with race equality, more prominently the civil rights movement, and we have seen the country erupt over immigration and immigrants on more than one occasion. I'd like to focus on the present, though.

The first question I pose to the protesters of confederate history would be: Why are you taking it upon yourselves to deface and destroy property that doesn't belong to you?

The second would be: What did the statue do to you personally to make you want to wrap a rope around it and tear it down? Or what did the flag do to you all to make you want to remove its presence from society?

I struggle with understanding this issue because the statues recognize men of history. Those men fought for what they believed in at the time, just like you all are doing right now. I understand that the statues represent a time in history where men and women of different color were not seen as equals, but it's history.

I now ask, do you propose to strike that portion of history from textbooks? Is it on your agenda to protest the making of textbooks and the teaching of America's history and the formation of the United States?

In my view, it appears the confederate statues and those who are fighting for them, would be equivalent to a statue of someone like Martin Luther King Jr for those who are asking to remove confederate history. No one has taken to the streets to have his statue removed because he was a key player in the Civil Rights Movement.

No one has taken to the internet to disgrace the name of John F Kennedy for his role, or even Abraham Lincoln for being credited as the President that ended slavery. Each one of those men stood up for what they believed in. Abraham Lincoln wanted every man and woman to be free and equal, so he directed a country through war to fight for that. Whether you, me, or anyone else thinks their beliefs were right or wrong does not matter, because we live in a country where we can all have different opinions.

So, I ask you this, what is the purpose of removing those men and the flag they stood for from history? We are supposed to learn from the past, right?

I have always been told to try to walk in others’ shoes before I form an opinion. I don’t want to argue with those that believe the confederate portion of history needs to be removed, I simply want to understand why. I want to end this article with a challenge, though. I challenge those who believe in the removal of the confederate symbolism to walk in the shoes of those that want to protect the history. As soon as I reach an understanding of why the removal is so passionately fought for, I will attempt to walk in those shoes.