No one flying that flag is unaware of how it is perceived by just about everyone. If someone is flying it just to be a jackass is it all that different than flying it to be a racist? It's still a public act of belligerence towards a specific group of people.
Just one group of people ?? I think the meaning has been added to or better yet changed over the years for some, but yes the original meaning is still a part of that flag, and it is hard to change something or to extract that part of it without redesigning the flag altogether.
Passers by have no clue what one's definition is when flying a flag, and no one wants to be caught flying a flag for racist reasoning or any bad reasoning if that is part of why they are flying a flag other than the American flag these days.
The southerner's need a new national pride symbol that reflects their southern lifestyles or cultural beliefs, and one that they can fly without it being somehow attached to racism in which the old confederate flag was part of once upon a time.
Why hasn't there been a new flag to represent for example the "southern redneck culture or lifestyle" ??? Otherwise one without the racist aspect to it I wonder ?? Of course some beliefs in culture's are going to offend other's always, but hey that's life just as long as it is legal, doesn't violate the law, and remains not in violation of law's pertaining to one's individual rights, civil liberties, and the pursuit of one's happyness.
If somehow it gets in the way of these things listed above, then the one's who are flying it for such reasoning, and is flying it because of his or her actions as a racist for an example, then it's not hard to put 1+1 together to = bad reasoning for flying a perceived symbol of hate by the flyer in those individual cases.
Time to design a new flag for the Southern lifestyle maybe ?? I bet the creative artistic mark up of a new representative flag would be amazing.
Get busy America.
Just my two cents worth.
Maybe the flag is kept for divisiveness, and the forwarding of hate by those who use it in these ways, and if so are they just poorly educated and possibly extremely gullible, and sadly grew up extremely poor in their lives ???
It's definitely a study.