By Gibbs Knotts & Chris Cooper

A longstanding social science finding holds that collective public opinion is fairly sticky on most issues. In other words, the public’s views do not change very much — and when opinions do shift, the movement tends to be fairly slow. Public opinion does not change over the course of a day, week or month, but rather occurs over years or decades, if it moves at all.

 The recent debate over the Confederate flag might seem to challenge this narrative. A little more than two weeks ago, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s press secretary, Josh Ellis, said that the governor supported a ban on specialty license plates featuring the Confederate battle flag. According to Ellis, this change was “due to the recent Supreme Court ruling and the tragedy in Charleston.”

By Hannah McLeod • Guest Columnist

We all have those memories that lurk in the back of our brain, the hazy, maybe-real-maybe-not memories from the time before we gained a sense of self. For me, those memories include being twirled around by, hugged and kissed by, or photographed with, people from all over the globe. While at two-and-a-half I had little idea of what was going on, the sights, smells, and energies of Folkmoot USA were enthralling. 

Before I was born — while she was still pregnant with me and then with my brother — my mother has been taking us to Folkmoot performances. An avid traveler herself, she understood that Folkmoot was the perfect way to journey around the world with three toddlers in tow. As I grew and became aware of what the festival was, who these people were that looked so ravishing in foreign garb, and what it meant to have them here, Folkmoot turned into a spectacle that I couldn’t wait to be a part of. It was incredible to sit in the audience and watch, but I thirsted for more.

EDISTO ISLAND, SC — Whether it is a time-honored family tradition or simply the very real possibility that, as a family, we share a stunning lack of imagination, the Cox family always spends a week on Edisto Island every summer.

I have seen more Confederate flags flying in the past couple of weeks than I have seen in years. A few days ago, I was at the grocery store and saw a young fellow with a Confederate flag waving above the tailgate of his truck. As he pulled out of his parking space, another guy walking by said something to him — I couldn’t hear what — and then gave him a big smile and a thumbs up.

The North Carolina Senate has become emboldened in its partisanship over the last couple of years, and there appears to be no end in sight. Under the leadership of Sen. Phil Berger, the president pro tem, and his troops — including our own Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin — it has ventured so far to the right and is making moves that are so politically heavy-handed that even Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and the GOP-controlled state House often call foul.

I should get over being astounded by the way the world works. And I’m talking about the good stuff, not the negative.

The package of stories that graced the cover of The Smoky Mountain News last week, “The Golden Children,” is almost allegorical in its arc. Staff writer Holly Kays traveled to an orphanage in a remote part of Bolivia to help do some construction work and spend time with the children. Her reporting about the orphanage — named Kory Wawanaca, which means “Golden Children” — its founder, Carrie Blackburn Brown, and the connection to Western North Carolina and particularly Haywood County, is so touching that it could never be scripted because it would come off as too heartwarming, too many people doing the right thing for all the right reasons.

Many years ago, in a time and a place that seems so far away to me now, I courted a young lady and fancied I was in love. We were really just kids playing at being grown-ups, but we believed we were destined to spend eternity together.

Complicated. Ignorant. Entrenched. It’s easy to come up with words to describe the state of race relations in this country and especially in the South, but some come to mind more easily than others after what happened in Charleston last week. Dylann Storm Roof attended Bible study with black congregants of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and then summarily gunned down nine of those in the group.

And once again we in this country are forced to confront the ugly reality of racism, compelled to search for ways to turn tragedy into change.

I remember someone once telling me that all the seemingly trivial, decidedly unimportant choices you make every day prepare you for when the big thing comes along and the right decision might have life-changing consequences. Do right everyday for the right reasons and you’ll most likely do right when that moment arrives. At least we all should hope that’s the way it will turn out.

I think that admonition has more to do with morals and ethics than actual actions, but it still popped into my head when I was editing one of the stories in last week’s paper. I’m referring to the school bus driver in Macon County who may have saved the lives of children and staff at South Macon Elementary School with a singular act of courage.

By the time I was in the fifth grade, I knew I wanted to grow up to be a lawyer. While other kids my age grew up with dreams of becoming race car drivers or ballet dancers or senators (surely you remember those student government types), I dreamed of fierce cross-examinations, roasting the accused on the witness stand until they blurted out desperate confessions, anything to escape my searing questions and the inferno of their own guilt, as I composed it like Dante for a jury of their peers.

“Who IS that man?” one attractive juror would whisper to another. “So brilliant, so dashing, so well-groomed and articulate.”