Five years ago, I lived in a small town in the Midwest state of Iowa. The first time I arrived there from my life in North Carolina, I had my own personal culture shock. Previously, I had believed that all of the United States was similar to where I had been born in a town full of diversity with wide range of races and cultures. From what I’ve seen there, I’ve come to the conclusion that not being in contact with diversity leaves you behind the rest of the world in your very own bubble of ignorance. I believe this bubble needs to be popped.

The first vivid memory that comes up when I think of my first day in Iowa garners feelings of fear. My mother, sister and I pulled in the high school parking lot (I was only in middle school at the time) and our attention was immediately pulled to a full sized Confederate flag flying proudly on the back of a student’s truck. Despite my mixed looking features, my family and I identify as African American and so grew up on the stories of my ancestors’ struggle in the United States (If you didn’t know yet, African-Americans come in all differents shapes, sizes and varying degrees of melanin). Due to this and our experience with living in North Carolina, the first question out of all of our mouths was, “What type of town did we actually move to?” Now imagine the different racial and cultural experiences that made our reaction just as justifiable as the reaction of the people in that small town to ignore the Confederate flag flying (but Iowa supplied troops to the Union, so maybe not as justifiable for them). The background and negative connotations of the Confederate flag are rarely explained and often times rarely understood by those who it is explained to. Those who proudly fly the Confederate flag have not had the same experiences minorities of the United States have so they continue to use their right of ignorance to justify it.

I’ve learned tolerance since my time in Iowa. After all, you can’t teach years’ worth of factual history when someone is stuck in their own version of events. Yes, at one point, the Confederate flag was a symbol of rebellion and battle, but it was also a symbol for what the southern states were fighting for, which was an economy based on slavery. I’m not going to be mad at anyone who wears Confederate patches or has the flag on their car, and I will do my best to not waste my time judging your experiences that led you to loving the symbol so much.

On one last note, I have the nerve to say the American flag and Confederate flag are mutually exclusive; they have two different meanings that were defined clearly during the Civil War and anyone who flies them together is a hypocrite. But that’s just my opinion, and I’m not sorry.