Good research, McGrath! It does sound like open-shut black-white voting, doesn't it. However, there were a bunch of white liberals voting down the flag and black conservatives voting it up, hence the 'surprisingly close'.

I was thinking about this whole 'it must stand for hate' assumption. I'm sure there are some Native Americans to whom the American flag symbolizes genocide from 200 years ago. So was everyone who ever fought under that flag a hateful racist out to do evil to the Native American?