Many here have tossed around the word "offended" as a way to minimize the significance of the issues/concerns of those who push for the removal of confederate statutes and artifacts from various public areas, and to lampoon us as hypersensitive "eggshell plaintiffs," to borrow a phrase from law.

However, whether deliberate or not, such glib analysis misses an important dynamic here that distinguishes the desire to remove the statue from mere insult.

Assume some 7th grader chides his classmate thusly: "Tim is a bonehead." Now that's certainly not a nice thing to say, but in the larger scheme of things, is typically of little import. All kids get teased and insulted from time to time. Yet we "eggshell" protestors who want the confederate statues removed aren't pushing for schools to be closed. Why not? If school yards are a place for insults to thrive, and insults lead to offense, then according to you, being averse to offense, we should be pushing for schools to close.

Tim being called a bonehead may be unfortunate and even untrue, but societal policy is not shaped around the premise that Tim is a bonehead. Laws are not established to to reinforce that idea and ensure that Tin is treated accordingly. Tim can easily brush off the insult and move on with life.

Not so with those on the wrong side of those depicted by the statues. When the Confederacy was founded under the idea that "...the Negro is NOT the equal to the white man," they established laws to reinforce that idea that persisted even after the Confederacy ceased to exist as a viable political entity. The former confederate states enacted laws that prohibited blacks to be educated, and then later prohibited blacks from attending schools with whites, leaving blacks with inferior books, supplies, buildings, etc. These same states enacted laws that prohibited blacks from serving on juries, barred blacks from being outside their neighborhoods after sundown, from being in white residential areas except within the context of being a domestic worker, passed laws making it more difficult for blacks to vote. They passed laws mandating which water fountains from which blacks could drink, into which doors blacks could enter or exit in a public establishment, where blacks could sit in a restaurant, movie theater or bus. They passed laws precluding blacks from staying in hotels, getting medical treatment at hospitals, and studying at some colleges and universities Every aspect of life for blacks was impacted by laws designed to advance the premise that "the negro is not equal to the white man," and ensure the law realizes that result. There is a residual effect of these laws and that mindset that negatively impacts blacks to this day. This very thread is about a protest march by white supremacists who think "the negro is not equal to the white man." Blacks were injured by those white supremacists who had that mindset.

It goes beyond mere offense for those who want those statues removed.

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