As a southerner, I too find that too many people take an inaccurate knee jerk reaction to symbols. Some are banished for the most silly of reasons.

During the fall of communism, the Confederate battle flag was carried by some as a symbol of freedom - fighting a tyrannical central authority. The only time I have heard Dixie played on a radio station, I was in the Czech Republic!

Only the historically ignorant associate the Confederate battle flag with slavery. After all, when Lee and Grant met at Appomatix, it was Grant, not Lee who was a slaveowner. Lee had inherited slaves in the early 1850s and immediately voluntarily freed them. Lee had also described slavery as ''a moral and political evil''. The northern army segregated its regiments by race and only let whites serve as officers. The Confederate army's regiments were integrated and minorities were allowed the serve as officers. The highest ranking minority officer in the war was Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie.

There is a big difference between being ''politically correct'' and historically correct.