Before the Confederate flag is surrendered up for the second time in this country, another flag or two and what they represent needs to be brought into focus as well.

First, however, why did the police and the media see fit to show the mass murderer in Charleston, S.C., waving a few small Confederate flags? It wasn’t necessary to do so to start this firestorm. Perhaps those who are to report the news decided to make the news by whipping up another story born of a senseless mass murder.

I take it as a deliberate demonization of the “stars and bars.” This ultimately plays into the hands of racist groups who want the Confederate flag to strike fear when it’s seen by people of color. The liberal media are also trying to establish an overall resentment of the flag by the rest of the country. The Confederate flag has been and is being transformed by those who admire and hate it into something it never was from its origin.

If society sees fit to put the Confederate flag on the chop block of political correctness, let’s take a look at a real offensive flag. No flag (to my knowledge) could represent greater oppression, tyranny, atrocities, murder and human misery over a great expanse of time and to every corner of the world than the British flag known as the “Union Jack.” Still, this flag flies proudly on yachts, docks and harbors all over America. All the crimes or offenses against society related to the Confederate flag are pale by comparison to the bloody history of the British Union Jack.

If a crusade is to be started to remove all symbols of hate, racism or oppression from public view, history would rate the Confederate flag as among the least offensive. Without requiring explanation in this day and time, all flags and symbols of Islam need to go. Christianity does not get a pass either, since the Ku Klux Klan likes to set fire to crosses. All crosses too should be removed from the top of every church down to every necklace since this “burning image” in our minds now represents racism more than Christ Jesus.

If the people of the Southern states and former Confederacy are pressured and compelled to run down the “stars and bars,” should they be denied the right to remove the American flag as well? It was Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman who conducted his infamous march across the South making war on the civilian population, burning, robbing, raping and pillaging. It was under an American flag that these atrocities were carried out, so why should the Southern states have to look at this banner to remind them of these criminal acts and humiliation they were forced to endure?

Let the history books proclaim what flags waved over the biggest crimes against humanity. When the slain are tallied, the Confederate flag would not be worth mentioning.

Karl Schmidt, a Maryland native, moved to Farmville in 2004. His great-great-grandfather was a Confederate cavalry soldier from Northumberland County. A quadriplegic, he recently wrote a book, “Sticking to my Guns,” about dealing with life from a wheelchair. His email address is tenbears@centurylink.net.