This ignores that the "Confederate flag" isn't even the Confederate flag, it's the Virginia specific one. The point it became a "southern symbol" is a previous

This ignores that the "Confederate flag" isn't even the Confederate flag, it's the Virginia specific one. The point it became a "southern symbol" is a previous set of edgy teenagers and racists who flew it while legislating against black people and trying to stop civil rights. The point of that iconography is to be a racist dogwhistle, and it's been a very successful one over the past hundred years