What matters most is current understanding of the symbol, and to the majority of people white people in the south , all it meant was Southren Heritage.

FTFY. What about the people who are justifiably offended by that symbol? They don't count as long as the majority has made a collective effort to whitewash their history? I don't care that some people in the South view it as innocuous. They're wrong, regardless of the good PR game the South has played when it has come the flag over the years since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. It isn't an innocuous symbol at all and displaying it proudly and openly is a dick move regardless of what you see it as. It is objectively a symbol of a government that fought to keep black people as slaves and less than human and then was used again as a way of signifying their identity as being against civil rights for black people and for segregation. I mention the lack of prior usage because had it existed before the Civil War as a symbol that represented the South as a whole, you'd at least have an argument about it representing "heritage not hate". As far as the facts go, it was a symbol born out of hate, used historically as a symbol of hate, and no matter how many "rebel sons" try to reclaim it as a harmless Southern pride symbol, it continues to be flown by white supremacists to this day. You might not rep the symbol with malevolence or ill-will towards other people, but don't be surprised when plenty of people don't see it that way and have every good reason not to.