Petty calls flag “How a swastika looks to a Jewish person”
July 18, 2015 – Tom Petty sat down with Andy Greene of Rolling Stone right after the Confederate battle flag was taken down in South Carolina, and was asked about his past use of the Confederate battle flag. Petty tells RS that the Confederate battle flag was like “wallpaper in the South” where he grew up, and he “was pretty ignorant on what it meant”. In the tour for “Southern Accents” he started using a Confederate Battle Flag to represent a “rebel” character, and he regrets it tremendously, to the point that he had them remove a picture of the Confederate battle flag as a backdrop from the album “Pack Up The Plantation: Live”. Kid Rock needs to take notes, and he should also denounce his past use of the flag and remove the Confederate battle flag from any artwork on his albums. Petty tells RS, “I wish I had given it more thought. It was a downright stupid thing to do.”
Petty ends the great RS interview by saying, “Beyond the flag issue, we’re living in a time that I never thought we’d see. The way we’re losing black men and citizens in general is horrific. What’s going on in society is unforgivable. As a country, we should be more concerned with why the police are getting away with targeting black men and killing them for no reason. That’s a bigger issue than the flag. Years from now, people will look back on today and say, “You mean we privatized the prisons so there’s no profit unless the prison is full?” You’d think someone in kindergarten could figure out how stupid that is. We’re creating so many of our own problems.”
JTMP agrees 100% Tom!
Read Andy Greene’s interview on Rolling Stone here: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-petty-on-past-confederate-flag-use-it-was-downright-stupid-20150714#ixzz3gFo9LGtw (photo credit: Mudcrutch/CC)
