What’s in a flag — specifically, the Confederate flag, which will soon be removed from the grounds of South Carolina’s state capitol? The American and state flags there are flying at half-mast in mourning for the nine black Charleston residents shot dead at a prayer meeting last week. The perpetrator is yet another dead-eyed-young-white-male-loser, whose photo looks like the poster for yet another down-market-hot-summer-in-Hollywood thriller, perhaps to be called “Satan’s Spawn.”

The claim is that the flag stands for racism and rage, and as such may have inspired the killer, and this may have substance. But the fact is that while the Confederate flag flew over the capitol, the state underneath it has become one of the most diverse and least polarized states of the union, and perhaps the most tolerant.