I had a teacher in college who hated confederate symbols and used to argue that they are now symbols of racism.
I explained then, and still tell people this to this day.
If somone wanted to, at will, they could make the word "door knob" a racial slur and make the "peace sign" (aka the cross of nero) into a racist symbol.
Its really easy to do, my teacher didn't doubt me, but her thinking implied that she would probably want to then ban those words and symbols too, and probably keep doing so.
As a musician, I audition for spots in working bands when I need to. Once I was jamming with a group and asked whether they did anything by Lynryd Skynyrd, like "Sweet Home Alabama," "Gimme Three Steps," etc.
One guy jumped up and said he wouldn't play their music because they were racists, since they used the Confederate flag as a backdrop. We had just finished doing an Alabama tune, and I pointed out that they also use the Stars & Bars as a backdrop. He said that he wasn't going to do any more Alabama tunes either.
I did *not* join that band. In fact, I packed up and left right then. People - especially liberals - can really be weird.