Well, no, not if the people of [fill in the State] don't see it that way.
If you think that's the case, then the Journolister abusers have won you over at least, and I'm sorry to hear it. I don't believe a word those b*stards say, because I know they've been on the warpath for 25 years now, as a campaign of "cultural imperialism", to get Southerners to give up barbecue and persimmons and start eating knishes and bagels instead. But the campaign is more valuable to them than any cultural inroads they might make (like persuading Tidewater people to say "youse guys" and "f'geddaboudit"), because they're playing it for "keepsies" politics.
it is up to the people of South Carolina and Mississippi
I agree. But the campaigners know how to make the merchant Republican class go "squish" by threatening economic boycotts, which sets the hoteliers and vendors' groups to squealing, and they rush to the governor (as they did in Georgia over the flag controversy there, and got a Republican governor, a winner, to go back on his political promise and go "squish"), and beg him to surrender the State, to avert the wrath of the NAACP, the NFL, and whoever else the civil-rights NGO grandees and their power-junkie pals can get to go along with them.
re: “But, whether we like it or not, the media has been successful in identifying it as such.”
“Well, no, not if the people of [fill in the State] don’t see it that way.”
Again - I do not see the Confederate flag as racist or bad in any way. I’m saying the media has convinced many others - especially Black Americans - that it is. What think about it or you think about it is irrelevant. I daresay if you ask just about any Black person if they think the Confederate Battle flag is racist - what do you think their answer will be??
It won’t matter all the history and facts you put forth, it is an emotional position for some people and they won’t hear what you are saying.
So, as I said - it is ultimately up to the people in those states to decide. Not me nor you.