Phil Anselmo Defends Pantera’s Use of the Confederate Flag
It’s been a rough year for Phil Anselmo. After decades of giving speeches about white pride and writing racially charged lyrics, the poor dude gives one Nazi salute while yelling “WHITE POWER!” and suddenly everyone is accusing him of being a bigot.
For most musicians, these kinds of complaints might prove damaging to their reputations. But Anselmo is a ninja master when it comes to public relations. Thus, in all of his wisdom, he has decided to combat these indictments by defending Pantera’s use of the Confederate flag. From a new interview with Rolling Stone (via Rock Feed):
“If we’re really going to get into commentary here, yes, I see the projected Confederate flags. Well, for one, I’ve always said, ‘Flags don’t mean a damn thing to me.’”
Good for Anselmo for speaking out against the tyranny of flags. For far too long, humanity has allowed itself to be oppressed by the insidious implications of flags that have traditionally been used as symbols of hatred. Like, does the fact that I have a massive ISIS flag on my wall mean I support ISIS? Of course not — flags don’t mean a damn thing. Guess what? I also own an Attila shirt. Does that make me an Attila fan? Of course not — shirts, too, do not mean a damn thing.
Anselmo continues:
“Two, by using the Confederate flag, despite what anyone says – and I don’t give a shit, because no matter what I say, I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t – but the truth of it all is, it was about as innocent as innocent could be. We weren’t confessing to any clandestine power of structure or however you assholes wanna put it these days. I think we used the Confederate flag merely because of Lynyrd Skynyrd. We had learned from people before us. And it was never about anything other than that.”
Again, Anselmo’s logic here is difficult to debate. Everyone everywhere learns from the people before them, and no one every questions those precedents. It’s just how we learn. Everyone knows that the earlier you were born in human history, the smarter and kinder you were. That’s just life. Don’t like it? Take it up with God. Sure, refusing to say “Hey, just because the people before me did things a certain way means I have to as well” has lead to some tragic incidents, like The Golden Gate Bridge Tragedy of 1984, when a school student jumped off the bridge and then all of his friends immediately followed his example. But you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.
Anselmo concludes the interview thusly:
“Of course they wanted that little buzz shot at the very end, and I hope you’re still recording me. I know what you’re doing, media. I do. I know what you’re doing. And I hope you get a whole lot of clicks out of it. I really do. There’s your headline. Thank you.”
No no no — thank you, Phil. That the media paid the special effects wizards at Industrial Light & Magic millions of dollars to create multiple photorealistic videos of Anselmo behaving like a racist is the worst kept secret in metal. Finally, someone has the balls to speak truth to power.
So suck it, SJWs. Phil Anselmo can what he wants. Words don’t mean a damn thing to him.
