I'm fairly sure anyone reading this pretty much thinks the Confederate flag is a symbol of hate worthy only of ridicule. Much of that ridicule has unfortunately gone toward stereotyping Confederate flag supporters as toothless, incestuous bumpkins.
While I don't doubt that some Flag Racists may suffer from various disorders related to consanguinity, most go to work every day, sit on city councils, run for president, and yes, some wade in the shallow end of the gene pool. But most are just like you and me---except really, really racist.
Some suffer simply from what I've in the past called the "incredulity of privilege", where your position in society blinds you to the experiences of everyone who doesn't share your advantage. And a lot of it is just straight up hate.
I'm still trying to find a catchy name for Confederate flag wavers, but it isn't easy. I was thinking "wretched, hate-filled traitorous douchebag" but it's not very catchy. Then I thought about "rebel" but that doesn't seem to put any moral weight behind it. I suppose I'll have to settle for "racist". Let's examine some the the flag-apologist phraseology and where it isn't simply overtly racist, dissect it a bit.
A Texas TV station has some fun quotes to start with.
“I, myself, am not a racist person and neither are the majority of people here,” Confederate flag supporter Chris Boyd said. “This flag has nothing to do with race, it has nothing to do with creed. It’s our history.”
I have a history. I have a family history that includes people who died in the Holocaust, people who were successful in business, people who weren't, people who stole from others, people who were heroes. I don't have anyone I'm terribly embarrassed by in my history, but if I did I wouldn't advertise it, except as a cautionary tale to my kid.
Chris "See, I'm a racist!" Boyd has either not examined what "history" he's talking about, or he has, making him an obvious bigot, rather than an oblivious one. And you'd have to be lobotomized to truly believe the flag has "nothing to do with race."
As a reminder, by the time of the Civil War Black, slaves made up almost half of the population in the South, and were the majority in some states. It's not unreasonable to say that most of their descendants don't share Boyd's view on "heritage". In our time, African Americans are moving to the South in huge numbers. As of the 2010 census, 55% of African Americans were living in the South (perhaps fleeing the Rust Belt, perhaps preferring racists who announce it by waving Confederate flags, not our northern racists who pretend it doesn't exist and that all that legal/police/economic inequality is a Big Coincidence).
Another clever Texan had this to say:
Rodger Brown attended the rally and he said what happen to the Charleston shooting victims was horrible, but it shouldn’t be associated with the flag. Brown said supporters should be able to fly the flag as they wish.
“Today, it's the Confederate flag [under scrutiny], when is it the Texas flag? When is it the American flag? People have to stand up and fight for what they believe -- this is just what we believe in,” Brown said.
Rodger, you not only don't know how to spell your name right, you're a racist idiot. First, the asshole who murdered the the Black church-goers had a nice collection of racist flags, including the one you like.
The murdering racist says he did it because he is a racist and proudly displayed racist flags! Seriously. So when you say, "it's just what we believe in" we already knew that. You believe in racism. We get it. And thanks for waving around a flag that lets us know so we can steer our kids away from you.
One of the silliest comments was, “We’re wanting to show our pride, our American pride." Oy gevalt. If you want to wave a flag to show "American pride" you might want to choose the American flag, not the one flown by a society that caused one of the bloodiest wars in history in order to defend its ability to enslave others.
Look, I'm sure most of this is redundant to the reader, but it's helpful to remember that waving the Confederate flag does have important symbolism. It symbolizes white supremacy, murder and slavery. This all-around flag-douchery is designed to do one thing only: tell non-racists that they should watch their backs.
Don't worry; we are. And we're watching you.