mean they mean anything good by doing so. Many are still screaming and kicking about the flag, and even those who are cooperating are probably resentful and thinking of ways to get back even, as well as ways to make sure the change never reaches below the surface.

sadly, rumors of the death of the confederacy are greatly exaggerated.

it is remarkable how the politics are different this time regarding the flag itself, but everything underlying it is still there, and continue to play out in discriminatory workplace practices; disparate law enforcement, sentencing, and incarceration; voting rights; etc., never mind overt violence.

citizens are more likely to regress. Backlash and all...

Laws may inhibit overt racism but as a country (maybe as a species) xenophobia still reigns.

being shut down. While I was there, I was subject to in-my-face jokes about being a Yankee. A a woman in the previously male-dominated hardware and software support group. First "joke" I was told - why does SC have more N***** and NC have more Yankees? Answer - because SC got to pick first. Then when I applied for the same two positions as two other guys in my group, I was told not to get my hopes up, jobs like that went to guys from NC. (I was offered both jobs ).
That's the background. The overt racism, though, was startling to me.
I became friendly with and had lunch with a black woman from the accounting group. She had moved back to NC from Chicago.
I asked her why she would come back, everything was so racist, and she said that in the South, at least they were up front about it. In the North, racism was just as bad, but they were sneakier, is all.

Hopefully, removing the symbols will stop some from having a symbol of racism to rally around and identify with.

I moved to Florida in 1987, to keep my job. Good things about it, bad things about it. Just like any other state, as far as I can tell.
Of course now I cannot even wade in the Gulf, don't know if the infectious nasty stuff is global warming or pollution. Or both.