Lack of comprehension is not my problem.
If someone can't understand the message, even when it has been clarified time and again, it is not my duty to educate those who don't want to understand.
You're wrong. It IS your failure if you can't communicate your message. And this doesn't mean you personally, this is those in general who wish the Confederate flag to not be offensive.
I don't respect people that blame me for things I did not do. It's a two way street, you have to show it to get it and all my life I have operated as if race is of no importance to me, only character.
What do I get in return?
Constant implications that I am still a racist because of the place I was born.
It's not right to always apply guilt be association.
You don't respect people when they ask you to not do something they've informed you offends them?
You are just ignoring the audience.
I'm trying to explain to you why this is happening. I'm trying to educate you about the communication process and why the efforts to reform the image of the Confederate flag are failing even today.
This is NOT about history. This is about communication. And the side trying to redeem the flag are failing at their efforts to do so.
It doesn't help that I have to drive past a statue of the founder of the KKK with a Confederate flag flying behind it at least once a week.
What I'm trying to tell you is that if you're saying "f*** you" to your audience when they don't understand what you're trying to communicate is that it IS your fault.
You are failing to express your point of view in a way that alters the perception of your audience. And you seem proud of it; because you blame your audience in the first line of your post - which is actual proof of your failure as a communicator.
Now, I'll grant you this: you're going to have a hard time ever altering what that flag will mean to most people except Southern whites - because of the one part of communication that you can't control and that's the outside force of history. It was flown by the enemy of the US who happened to be slave-owners (I'm not saying the War was about slavery); It was flown by racist organizations in the 1950s and 1960s during the Civil Rights struggle. It's flown frequently by racist organizations today as well.
So you may be flying it for different reasons, but when it has that much association, you're likely never going to change the mind of your audience. So, when you show it - you HAVE to take that into account. If you don't, then once again, you fail as the communicator.
I'm telling you these things from my perspective of a Communications major. Okay, that's what I studied. I'm explaining to you why you're failing and likely, will always fail to reclaim the meaning of the flag. It carries too much weight. I freaking live in the South now and I love it and I love most people (although Nashville is surprisingly full of transplants from all over) here, so I know the Southern perspective on the war and hear it ad nauseam. But it's not going to change the fact that the Confederate flag is a symbol of pride for Southern whites only. It will always be a symbol of oppression for Southern blacks.
It may not mean that to you; but if you're ignore your audience, you fail to communicate. It's not what you've done. It's the years of history that will always weigh down that flag.