Anthrax’s Scott Ian Asks Phil Anselmo to Donate to Racism and Holocaust Education Center
What’s left to say about the Phil Anselmo controversy? As expected, there’s been a lot of deflection of responsibility on the part of Anselmo’s supporters; we’ve seen a myriad of bullshit so far, ranging from cries of “Dime wouldn’t want us to speak out against Phil!” to “Everyone already knows this so who cares?” (when the whole point of our editorial was “Everyone knows and no one talks about it”) to “How come no one complains that black metal bands say anti-Christian stuff?” to “If you’re gonna pick on Phil for not liking minorities, you need to pick on Kanye for not liking white people.” It’s been hilariously depressing or depressingly hilarious, I guess depending on your point of view.
But the deflection which seems, in an odd way, the most ignorant is the one that ignore this fact: Anselmo’s use of the Nazi salute while screaming “White power!” last week wasn’t an isolated incident. He has a long history of this kind of behavior; and so, as MetalSucks’ own Crash Thompson put it:
This needs to be the FIRST step in reconciling his actions, not the last.
I guess we’ll see.
— Crash Thompson (@TehRockCritic) January 30, 2016
Which is absolutely true: you may be able to figure out a way to dismiss Phil’s antics the night of Dimebash, but you can’t dismiss his antics for the past two decades (at least). So how can Phil make good? Well, Anthrax’s Scott Ian has one good idea:
Hate speech. Racism. Inflammatory rhetoric…continued here: http://scott-ian.com/ @philiphanselmo A photo posted by Scott Ian (@scottianthrax) on
Which would certainly be a nice gesture on Phil’s part… but no one should think it would make everything a-okay. The best thing Phil can do to live down these accusations? Never pull a stunt like this again.
