I’m a life-long Northerner, and I used to occasionally see the Confederate flag back in the hippy days, used - so I assumed - as sort of a symbol of rebellion and non-conformity. I certainly don’t think those hippies were using it as a way of approving slavery or racial discrimination.
When it is used by Southerners, I see it as a symbol of regional pride, not as a defense of slavery or even necessarily as a defense of the Confederacy. Northerners who condemn it conveniently forget the history of de facto segregation and racial discrimination which was pervasive throughout the whole country for a hundred years after the Civil War. Should we therefore also ban the Stars and Stripes?
‘When it is used by Southerners, I see it as a symbol of regional pride’
Yep.