The Confederate Flag has always gotten quite a bit of heat over the past few decades. But it wasn’t until white supremacist Dylann Roof, who gunned down nine black people in a church shooting last month, that people on a wider scale finally started to renounce ties to the symbol which comes from a time when slavery was legal.
Singer Philip Anselmo, who is from the South himself, has utilized the Confederate flag for years on Pantera and Superjoint Ritual band merchandise. Anselmo has officially renounced his ties to the flag, which he said started out as more of an ode to Pantera’s love for Southern rock bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd who proudly waved it decades before them.
“These days, I wouldn’t want anything to fucking do with it, because, truthfully… I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want much to fucking do with it at all, and personally, you know I would never… The way I feel, and the group of people I’ve had to work with my whole life, you know… You see a Confederate flag out there that says ‘Heritage, not hate.’ I’m not so sure I’m buying into that, you know? But I can look at any… People can point out flaws in any social group, any ethnic group, any ideology and anything like that, and being that’s, once again, because everybody has different ideas about things…” – Anselmo.
“Uh, I think there’s some legitimacy to it, man. If it’s something that… you know, I guess… At my age… It is a symbol… It’d be, like, you know, would we be flying the Nazi flag? I don’t think so, because flags are looked at as… whether it be nationalism or symbols of something, you know? And, truthfully, you know, it’s like… I wish fucking everyone would get along. I wish that more than anything, but we all know, as logical human beings, that that’s pretty much impossible. You know, everybody has different ideas about stuff.” – Anselmo
“I think, really, where the use of the rebel flag or Confederate flag with us really came from was our love of bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and whatnot and shit like that, you know. There was never a time when it was okay to promote hate without a little bit of the tongue in the cheek, you know? It was never this blatant thing, unless I was completely out of my mind, which I was at points in time. And I’ll own that for damn sure, but that was a long-ass time ago. I’m coming up on 47 years old… and I think that if it’s upsetting enough to people in general, you know, I guess… This is tough to say without taking any side… Like I said, I can see where if people see it as a symbol of hate.” – Anselmo
Source: Hardrockhaven