I think that the last two weeks here on campus have been filled with argument. It’s crazy for me to see our campus experience some of the same divisive times like previous Ole Miss students have had to go through in the past. The Confederate Flag is a major controversy that I don’t see dying down any time soon, especially if you take the past week into consideration. I am indifferent on the subject but I often have felt like I am the only one. On the news, in the DM, and all across social media sites, people are taking sides to the ongoing flag debacle. When these people take a side, they go full out toward it. I have yet to see someone on the news or in the paper try and discuss both sides of the debate; everyone is extremely one sided. Each side tries to persuade people to join them by either discussing the history of fallen soldiers or how truly awful their ancestors felt (pathos is key in their persuasions because that is the only way that they feel like they can gain members).
I have stated several times in my commonplace book that being different and having differing opinions are a-okay. What isn’t fine is when people let these opinions grow so strong that they have no desire to hear an opposing argument. This is how hate groups such as the KKK and Black Lives Matter have managed to spread across the country like ants at a picnic. Both of these groups have their opinions of which they are entitled to, but they force their beliefs onto others in the most extreme of manners. One thing that I like about my FASTrack cohorts is that none of us think the same things. When the Confederate Flag controversy was in the spotlight, we had civil, intellectual conversations about why it should stay and why it should be taken down. It is definitely possible to have conversations such as these without pushing people of stakes or harassing people with racial slurs.