By Matt K. Lewis, Jun. 27, 2015, The Telegraph

Pretend for a minute you're a professional black woman living in Washington, DC. During your lifetime, things have mostly improved. But everywhere, vestiges of the past still haunt you. Living in Washington, DC, you probably have to take Jefferson Davis highway once in a while -- a road named after the president of the Confederacy. That's just one of the daily reminders.

In the wake of the horrific shooting of nine African-Americans at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week, I talked with Crystal Wright, who blogs at a site called Conservative Black Chick, about calls to remove the Confederate flag. "I'm a black woman and I was raised in the South," she told me, "so as a black person, regardless of politics, [the flag] bothers me."

"You know, when I go home to Richmond…to visit my family, I see the Confederate flag in people's yards," she continued.