As much as the ACC Baseball Tournament’s departure and subsequent fallout is centered around the Confederate flag, the truth of the matter is that this debacle highlights a lot more than racial tension in South Carolina.

Let me get this out of the way first — the flag is a symbol. Symbols never have one meaning. To proud history buffs down here, the flag represents men of honor fighting for their interpretation of the constitution.

Others believe it is a symbol of the darkest times in the state’s history, where human beings were bought and sold like livestock, and then subsequently lynched while exercising their newly found rights as free men.

The truth is, both of these views are correct. The American flag represents liberty and justice and some of the better parts of humanity’s capacity for accomplishment. But if countries’ flags are defined by the best and worst aspects of the nations they represent, then our country’s flag undeniably also represents the murder of Native Americans, the buying and selling of slaves by northern states, the Tuskeegee experiment in which blacks infected with syphilis were intentionally left untreated for years and various other injustices.

The Christian cross represents the death and resurrection of Christ, but make no mistake, Jim Crow-era blacks shuddered in fear at its sight during the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror.

Symbols can inspire and offend, depending on who’s looking.

The Confederate flag is a symbol of some good and some very, very despicable things. The moral question of whether or not it should be removed is an irrelevant question in the current situation’s context, though.

At the heart of the issue is the utter incompetence displayed by the NCAA, the NAACP and the ACC.

The NCAA, for one, has no business even being engaged in a cultural and political debate such as this one. The governing body of college sports, as I wrote roughly a year ago, has no business promoting, criticizing or anything in between with a state issue.

The ACC should likewise be ashamed for not having the backbone to tell the NAACP that the decision had already been made. Instead, John Swofford, who I imagine goes where the winds of political correctness take him, immediately placated the woefully confused activist group, much to the financial injury of a Myrtle Beach area badly in need of an economic shot in the arm.

Meanwhile, the NAACP continues to look more and more like a political appendix — somewhere down the evolutionary timeline, we’re pretty sure they served a purpose. Not so much anymore. The miscommunication between the national organization and the local branch has highlighted the group’s utter incompetence, and hurt a lot of people.

Simply put, there’s plenty of blame to go around here, and while the Confederate flag may very well be more appropriately displayed elsewhere (does anyone really understand why folks would want a supposedly honorable symbol in a politicians’ den, anyway? Me either), the fact of the matter is that in the context of college athletics, there plenty of villains at play.

Hijacking college sports and manipulating a game played by 19-year-old kids is low, no matter how important and noble the intended end result may be. Hard-headed fools abound in this state on both sides, and don’t expect our General Assembly to do the simplest thing and move the flag to a place of honor and history like a museum. And don’t expect the NAACP to move onto an issue that actually matters. And don’t expect the ACC to act with integrity (did anybody notice just how quickly Swofford found a replacement location, oddly enough, in his Tar Heel State backyard?).

“In the end, given the conference’s commitment to diversity, equality and human rights, our institutions have determined that this change should be made,” Swofford said of the move, calling it “unfortunate.”

Unfortunate, indeed, that no one in this situation could act with a little common sense.