I can't get my head around why it flies over South Carolina's capitol building.
I figure my lack of understanding is cultural. What am I missing about the "Southern heritage" debate?
I actually think you partly answered it in the phrasing of your question. It's part of the heritage of former Confederate states, part of their history, that they wish to preserve in their state flag, and in their culture.
My personal view of the Confederate flag is pretty close to G-Man's, that it's mostly not about racism among the guys in high school and college I knew who displayed the rebel flag on their trucks and t-shirts and so forth.
In my conversations with them, it didn't represent a white-supremacist ideology to them, it was more about a Deep South/redneck regional pride, listening to Lynard Skynard, Marshall Tucker, 38 Special, Charlie Daniels and similar "Southern Rock", and just a general youthful sense of rebellion against authority.
From others I've talked to older than me, they have a greater connection of the flag to Robert E. Lee and other soldiers of the Civil War, an honoring of those who died in that war. There is recognition (apart from whether the war was about slavery or other issues) that these were men who fought a difficult war against men they knew, and with exceptional honor and chivalry, particularly Robert E. Lee.
Lee and many of the other Confederate officers were West Point graduates in the Union before the war, who then were called on to fight for their states against the Union, and against their fellow West Point classmen cadets. And certainly toward the end, fought on for the Confederacy even when they saw it was a lost cause.
As an Australian, Dave, you might not know that more Americans died in the U.S. Civil War (over 600,000) than in any other war. More than in World war I (126,000 dead), more than in World War II (405,000 dead).
And since both sides in the Civil War were Americans, the flag and soldiers of the Confederate South are for many accepted as American symbols, not just as Confederate symbols. In World War II, military units gathered from Southern states fought with a regional pride under the banner of the rebel flag for the American cause.
In that spirit, I think a majority of Americans similarly have an appreciation for the Confederate Flag as simply representing the history and the valor of Confederate soldiers who fought in the Civil War (independent of the slavery/ white-supremacist ideological aspects of the Confederacy's
written founding ideology, that I doubt many of the "heritage, not hate" enthusiasts are even fully aware of.)
Arguments could be made either way. The Confederacy's founding ideology --and original flag!-- are deeply rooted in white supremacy.
But in the modern U.S., advocates for the Confederate flag's inclusion in their states may number in the millions, but the Ku Klux Klan's membership is believed to only be about 5,000 to 6,000 nationwide. And if you include a wider spectrum of white supremacist groups in the U.S., maybe that number rises to 40,000.
Out of a U.S. population of 320 million, they are insignificant among the millions who support inclusion of the Confederate flag.
So... regardless of what the Confederate banner truly represents historically, I seriously doubt it symbolizes racism or white supremacy for most who presently advocate its inclusion for reasons of history or regional-pride.
There are even black Americans who advocate its inclusion!
