The issues is that flying that flag on state house grounds is giving it a governmental endorsement. Never mind the fact that the flag didn't start to fly over the statehouse until 1962. Or that it isn't the flag of the confederate state of South Carolina. Or the fact that it's a flag of a defeated power.

It is the flag of The Ku Klux Klan. It's the flag of Maurice Bessenger and all who think like him. It's the flag of a state that was built on racial slavery. Look up the cornerstone speech to see the history for what it is. Racism was baked in from the beginning, and it's been reinforced every time a racist flys it while calling non white people niggers, spicks, and chinks.

I don't want to tear down confederate monuments. The civil war needs to be remembered. But the south tends to try and look at the war through rose colored blinders and only see the sacrifices made for war and not acknowledge why it was fought. Or what the symbols of that war have come to mean. The battle flag is a symbol racism and hatred.

It may not mean that to you, but to many of us that flag is soaked in the blood of Black Americans who have been beaten, raped, and murdered at the hands of hateful White Americans. Keeping that flag flying on government property legitimizes that hate. Racists can stand over the body of Black Americans and say "See? My flag still flyin over at the state house."