Letters to the editor

The Bushwhacker factor

Dear editor:

Ahhhh, spring!

Blooming flowers, growing gardens, high school proms, and just around the corner ... Bushwhacker Days!

I attended this annual celebration for a couple of years after I moved to Nevada but have since become aware and disturbed about the meaning of the term "bushwhacker."

I've been a resident of Nevada for six years, a southern Missouri resident since birth. I have one of those minds that "wonders" a lot and since I was unaware of the implications of "bushwhacker" I wonder if there are others who are ignorant of it's meaning as I was.

I have done a little research, though I am no historian, and I have yet to come up with anything positive about the word. As far as I can tell bushwhackers were southern sympathizers fighting for the southern cause and in my opinion there's no getting around what that cause was primarily about. Slavery.

I understand there are many families today whose ancestors fought and died during those tumultuous times, but isn't it possible to honor former family members without dishonoring our African-American families today? The Civil War is a tragedy in our nation's history, the institution of slavery was exceedingly tragic.

Any glory attached to things symbolic of that era seems quite sad to me.

Occasionally I see T-shirts, bumper stickers or hats that say, "The South Will Never Die," and I'm not sure what part of that "lost cause" anyone is trying to keep alive. The North-South war is over and it wasn't lost as in misplaced, it was lost as in defeated!

I'd be willing to entertain a valid point in support of "bushwhackers," bud I'd rather hear something more substantial than, "Well, it's part of our history!" There are a few things in my own personal and family history that I'm not proud of. I'm wondering if those pro-bushwhacker, pro-confederate flag, would just as easily drag out the secrets and skeletons in their family closet, print them on a banner, and wave them proudly from their front porch.

I live about 5 miles south of Nevada. As I drove into town a couple of months ago I noticed a plastic, black and white grocery bag with one handle caught on a tree limb. It's insides were bloated with air and on the front of it were two black, rectangular shapes, like "eye holes" watching each passer. It nodded about in the breeze like some dogged apparition of a long-gone southern sympathizer ...

I saw an unfamiliar man a few days ago. He was well-dressed, in a suit ... he was black. I was in town, my daughter was washing her car at the car-wash and I was crossing the street to go to the public library while I waited on her. The man was crossing the street at the same time ... he traveled west while I traveled east ... the dividing street ran north and south ... every direction represented: Every direction converged as we passed ...

As Missourians and Nevadans, we live in the United States. The Civil War is over, yet civil strivings still exist. I'm not an extremist. I'm not a member of the NAACP or the ACLU. I do want to be hyper-sensitive to ethnicity or gender.

However, I am a regular citizen concerned that all races are represented fairly. To me it doesn't seem balanced to wave banners or continue using titles that would be offensive to those whose ancestors were enslaved. In my opinion Bushwhacker Days would best represent the entire community of Nevada if it were titled something positive -- and the name "Bushwhacker Capitol" is nothing to be proud of.

-- Shannon Harwell

Nevada