The Confederate flag just meant “the south” to me back then.
Growing up around the same time, this was how I interpreted it as well. I didn’t give a shit about the flag, but I never got the racist connotation from anyone around me at the time. It was just something that Southern people liked, just as you said.
Southern people just like symbols of slavery. What’s wrong with celebrating symbols of slavery? It’s how I was raised. I don’t need to consider how descendants of slaves feel about seeing the battle flag of slavers celebrated. People who murdered hundreds of thousands of people so they could continue owning black people just used it as a symbol of institutional hate, what’s so wrong with that?
Growing up around the same time, this was how I interpreted it as well. I didn’t give a shit about the flag, but I never got the racist connotation from anyone around me at the time. It was just something that Southern people liked, just as you said.
Southern people just like symbols of slavery. What’s wrong with celebrating symbols of slavery? It’s how I was raised. I don’t need to consider how descendants of slaves feel about seeing the battle flag of slavers celebrated. People who murdered hundreds of thousands of people so they could continue owning black people just used it as a symbol of institutional hate, what’s so wrong with that?