Queen, I've lived in Texas and the southeast most of my life and these people either know exactly what they're doing or are far, far too stupid to live (i.e. associating rough ridin' OKLAHOMA and confederate "heritage"). "Rebel culture" is an attempt to whitewash the symbol of the confederate flag for what it really is--a symbol that was unearthed as a protest against the civil rights movement. It's the exact same thing as "I'm not racist and I have black friends but (insert some ridiculously racist combination of welfare babies, pulling pants up, rap music, black people not behaving "correctly" here)."
So yes, we know exactly what it is these "rebels" are trying to say: They don't like any black people or minorities who won't submit to conservative white protestant/southern cultural norms. I can at least barely respect the people I hung out with once in Louisiana once who just casually dropped the n-word (my face:

) like it was nothing and openly admitted they were racist. At least they weren't trying to insult anyone's intelligence.