Flags an 'embarrassment'

Dear editor:

On Saturday, July 16, I was driving through downtown Hot Springs, when at the corner of Central Avenue and Ouachita Avenue I experienced an embarrassment to our city. At that intersection, there were five pickup trucks festooned with Confederate battle flags. These racist symbols so prominently displayed are an embarrassment to our city and make us appear to be a community which supports such repugnant ideas to our many visitors.

While I recognize these people are exercising their First Amendment rights, I also recognize they are using those rights to embarrass and shame our city. Even more insulting was the inclusion of American flags alongside those racist symbols. The American flags were dirty, tattered, dragging the side and bed of the pickup trucks and, in at least one instance, defaced with some symbol and some slogan written across the bottom.

I do not believe this is the public face that Hot Springs wants to present to our thousands of annual visitors or one in which we citizens take pride.

David Welch

Hot Springs Village

Editorial on 07/26/2016

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