KootCon: Confederate Flag Not Racist

Kootenai Conservative: All my relatives on my father’s side are from the South, and they would tell you it would be a grave mistake to interpret a display of the Confederate flag as a gesture of racism or sympathy with slavery. It’s a symbol of Southern pride that those of us from the North or West can have trouble understanding because there’s nothing analogous to it in our own regional cultures. A lot of people in Texas fly Texas flags for the same reason.

Question: Do you consider the display of a confederate flag to be a racist statement?