Faithful do you believe the meaning of the flag can mean something non racial or discriminatory to many modern day southerners? I believe it can. I think there many who see it only as a symbol of pride and not hate.
I understand it's divisive nature and what groups used it later on to keep Jim Crow alive and white supremacy by extension. It also has no place on government property, except for Civil War monuments.
But I think we need to maintain the right for people to fly it as they please, racist or not. After all the First Amendment supports the right to free speech no matter how potentially offensive
Sure, I believe it is possible that someone can attach a non-racial meaning to the flag in question, but go along with me as we apply that same meaning to other things. It is possible that a person can consider a glass of milk a glass of apple juice, or that a Mercedes-Benz is chicken burrito, but if someone had those understandings we would generally correct them. Why? Because they don't correspond to reality.
The reality is that the Confederate battle flag was conceived by the CSA. The CSA stood for racism and slavery. Yes, it stood for state's rights too, but state's rights to do what? For the right of states to maintain slavery. But they also wanted to force Northern states to maintain slavery in the South, which isn't really state's rights in most people's minds. What do I mean? The South wanted the Northern states to follow the Fugitive Slave Act, which meant that those Northern states that didn't believe in slavery would have to cooperate with slave states by returning ex-slaves or runaway slaves at their own expense. The Fugitive Slave Act was a major contributor to the Civil War.
As for the First Amendment, I previously state that if a private individual wants to fly the Confederate battle flag or any other Confederate flag that person has a right to do so. But don't expect other people to agree with the CSA flag waiver that it's not a racist flag because it is. You can't separate the history from the flag. It was created as part of a racist slave country (the CSA), was held to represent all of the Confederacy by the Sons of the Confederacy in 1890, was used by the Klan to represent them and their beliefs, and was raised up in South Carolina by racist Democrat governor Ernest Hollings in 1962 (he later became a senator and is still alive at 93 years old -- strange that Media Matters and other groups haven't asked him for his opinion on this), later moved to a memorial in 2000 and taken down by Republican gov. Nikki Haley.
What about, you may ask, the Dukes and the General Lee? I don't believe they thought of the flag on their car as racist, but that's out of ignorance. Moreover, since that was PRIVATE ownership of the flag, I think it was ridiculous for the current owner of the General Lee to repaint it. Then again, let's say there was a cool-looking Volkswagon from the 1930s that had swastikas painted on it, and maybe to the original owner the swastikas meant peace in the same sense as in Hinduism. If the current owner repainted it out of sensitivity to people who lost loved ones under the Nazi regime, I would understand. Sometimes you have to not just think of yourself but consider how it makes others feel because of a real historical experiences. Historically speaking, black people in America didn't just suffer slavery, but Jim Crow in the South and other forms of discrimination all over the country, including lynching. It was still in my lifetime in some states black people and white people could not marry.
