In the South, the Confederate flag is something that most have come accustomed to seeing. It sprawls across the fronts of T-shirts, is slapped on the bumpers of cars, hangs on walls and in doorways and is flown on many a flagpole -- even on and around campus.
For students like Andrew Allen and Shoshanna Roberts, though, the ideals and values represented by the Confederate flag are issues unclear and confused, even from opposite ends of the racial spectrum.
Allen is a white first-year student in the Agricultural Institute, majoring in turfgrass management. According to Allen, Southern values are about hard work and politeness, and are very important and admirable.
"Dixie values are the best values you can have," Allen said.
Shoshanna Roberts, a black sophomore in animal science, said she believes Southern values are more about manners than they are about anything else.
"To me, southern Dixie values have to do with manners," Roberts said. "[The flag] is a part of it, yes, but I wouldn't put it as a very big part."
Roberts works for the N.C. State Equal Opportunity Institute and grew up in the northern part of the country. She said she thinks people in the South have a different kind of value system than those in the North.
"Southerners in general are more mannered than Northerners and a lot of other Americans in general," Roberts said. "They say 'God bless you' when you sneeze."
Allen said he thinks these values have begun to fall by the wayside. He said the reason for this is political correctness and the negative connotation some people associate with the Confederate flag, which has long been a symbol of Dixie.
However, according to Allen, people's reservations about the Confederate flag are unfounded.
"[The Confederate flag] represents a good point in Southern history. I don't think it should be hidden by no means," Allen said. "I think it should be displayed and worn proudly."
Richard Dellafave, a sociology professor who specializes in theory, racial and ethnic relations and stratification, said that he thinks most people who display the Confederate flag embrace it as a Southern regional symbol. Dellafave questions this logic, however.
"My question for them is: If [the Confederate flag] is such a regional symbol, then why don't black Southerners embrace it the way white Southerners do?" he said.
Allen said that when people, especially black people, get offended by the flag, it stems from a misinterpretation as to what the Confederate flag stands for.
"A lack of knowledge might be why it offends African-Americans, just because they don't realize that it's history. It's not me telling you 'I hate you' because of your skin color,'" Allen said. "I think that's what they think, but that's not it. It's history, not hate."
While the Confederate flag is the symbol of a government that propagated slavery, Allen said the display of the flag doesn't necessarily mean that he, or anyone who displays the flag, supports this ideal. Allen stressed that there were positive aspects of the Confederacy, such as tits contribution to the country's agriculture.
"The Confederacy had a very agriculture-based society; they got what they needed to get done," Allen said.
Allen said slavery was something he doesn't support, and Southerners who were members of the Confederacy should have tried other options.
"Slavery's not a good thing, but they did need someone to do [the work]," Allen said. "They just went about it entirely the wrong way."
Roberts said she knows that many who display the flag don't do so out of hatred.
"I don't think a lot of people, when they wear [the Confederate flag], mean for it to be racially motivated," she said. According to Roberts, the display of the Confederate flag used to bother her. The main reason she isn't insulted anymore is because she believes in a person's freedom of expression. However, she still believes the issue of race and inequality is a large one in this country.
"I think we're definitely making progress, but we have a long way to go." Roberts said.
Dellafave shares the sentiment that there is still much progress to be made and that racial inequality is still a big problem in this country.
According to Dellafave, the main reason inequality runs rampant in our society is that white people have a long history of being in control and aren't willing to relinquish that status.
"This is a very competitive society and a very unequal society. As it were, white people enjoy a competitive advantage. In order for that to change, a lot of white people would have to have a better chance of falling to or near the bottom," Dellafave said. "Most are not interested in making that sacrifice for social justice, and so through a network of mechanisms, white people maintain a competitive advantage."
Roberts pointed to a recent run-in at the florist as an example of the inequality and lack of respect the black community deals with on a daily basis. She said she was waiting in line, and when it was her turn to talk to the cashier, a white lady pushed in front of her. Roberts' friend prompted her to push back, but Roberts decided it wasn't worth it. She said she takes behavior like that with a grain of salt.
"A lot of stuff like that has happened to me before, but you have to just shake it off and continue to just do what you do," Roberts said.
Dellafave said one mechanism white people use to separate the social status of whites and blacks is found in the ratio of blacks to whites in residential areas.
"Whenever the percent of blacks [in a neighborhood] starts to rise to a number greater than 10 percent, the whites that would normally leave, leave," Dellafave said. "But new whites don't move back in."
From residential segregation, according to Dellafave, comes educational segregation on the secondary and elementary levels as well.
Although these mechanisms exist today, Dellafave said racial inequality has existed throughout this society's history.
"In sociology, we talk about a correlation between race and caste. What happens, historically, is that just about all non-European groups enter this society at an extreme disadvantage." Dellafave said.
According to Dellafave, the current situation of racial inequality is largely the result of the federal government.
"A viciously conservative government in Washington has tried since Reagan to roll back civil rights since the beginning of the civil rights movement," he said.
Dellafave said there are numerous examples of these rollbacks perpetuated by the government.
"[The rate of incarceration] shot up in the '70s. You didn't used to have such a racial disparity in the prisoners. Affirmative action has been beaten back, racial balance has been beaten back, and we haven't made progress in any kind of balance in residential segregation," he said.
Dellafave is skeptical that in the future a society of equality will be realized, barring an extreme and sudden change in our sociological and economic framework.
"The only way I see [a change] happening - and I've been criticized for this - is that there will be a long economic crisis that at first drives us apart. Only when [the economic crisis] drives us together to the point that we believe that we have to change the economic system to one that makes less inequality will there be equality," Dellafave said.
Although Dellafave admits he is skeptical about what the future brings, he doesn't claim to be able to predict it.
"Predicting history is a fool's errand, because unpredicted events can change everything." said Dellafave.
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