Silent Sam honors students who died as soldiers

For as long as I have visited or lived in Chapel Hill, nearly 60 years, "Silent Sam" has been a part of the University of North Carolina campus. In all those years, I never thought of the bronze Confederate soldier as a reminder of slavery or as an intimidation of anyone. In fact, I rarely even thought of Silent Sam as a Confederate soldier. Like most students and visitors, I saw Silent Sam as a decoration and a landmark. I suspect most students thought of Sam's reputation (every time a virgin walks by, he fires his musket) far more than they thought of his symbolism.

If I took the time to think about his presence, I thought of the UNC students who dropped their books and took up arms to defend their homes, their university and their state from a threatening military force. The statue was dedicated as a memorial to those students who fought and died in the Civil War. Sam was erected as an expression of grief by a population that suffered more casualties in the Civil War than any other state. UNC students were among those casualties, and Silent Sam honors the sacrifice of those families.

Although one speaker at the 1913 dedication, made tasteless and off-message boasts at the dedication, the solemn intent of the Silent Sam statue was to remember the UNC students who died in the Civil War, as Ed Yoder states in an excellent column in the News & Observer.

Andrew Young, the civil rights hero, confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., former congressman, former mayor of Atlanta, told an NPR reporter recently that removing Confederate monuments, as advocated by Black Lives Matter and other groups, is the wrong fight at the wrong time.

"I'm saying these are kids who grew up free, and they don't realize what still enslaves them — and it's not those monuments," Young said. He worries that the next time the political winds shift, crowds may be advocating tearing down monuments to Dr. King and other civil rights icons.

I hope, before the mob psychology takes hold and sweeps away every offending, misunderstood or uncomfortable vestige of the Civil War, the public and elected leaders will listen to voices of reason like Ed Yoder and Andrew Young.

A new era of protests and violence

Twice inside of a week, police officers are ambushed and killed by disgruntled criminals. This is the sort of things that doesn't happen in America or in any civilized, responsive, democratic society. But, suddenly, it is happening here, and there is no reason to believe that similar ambushes won't happen again. The ploy — call 911 to ask for emergency response then gun down the public servants sent to answer the call — conceivably become commonplace. Already, police officers are thinking twice about calls for assistance and are taking precautions against potential traps.

What is different this year from previous incidents of anti-police violence is the ready access to all sorts of military-style weapons, from long, rapid-fire, high capacity guns to explosives. Militant groups or individuals can amass arsenals of deadly weapons the police have difficulty matching.

Although there is little solid evidence to explain what motivated the shooters in Dallas and Baton Rouge, it is widely assumed that these assassinations were staged as payback for the recent deaths of black men in encounters with police. The Baton Rouge ambush occurred only blocks from where Black Lives Matter stage protests almost nightly following the fatal police shooting of a black man in the Louisiana capital.

As any number of saner commentators pointed out, it makes no sense to attack police officers and other law enforcement out of anger over the actions of a single officer in some other place in some other circumstances. For a segment of the population, however, payback is more important than justice, and protest is more important than judicial process. A few individuals turn words of protest into violence.

If America is turning a corner toward total distrust of police and the criminal justice system and toward vigilante actions, chaos and anarchy can be the result. As the Republican National Convention opens this week, I fear for the worst in Cleveland, where concealed carry and open carry of firearms on the streets will make it extremely difficult for law enforcement officers to tell ambush conspirators from Second Amendments stalwarts. Anti-Donald Trump protesters promise disruptions as intense as the 1968 Democratic Convention. Clashes between anti-Trump and pro-Trump factions could easily dissolve into violence.

Distrust of police and criminal justice emanating from the convention protests could usher in waves of violence against police and other pillars of American civilization.