Former PANTERA singer Philip Anselmo says that he had nothing to do with the decision to remove the “Hesher Dream T-Shirt” – which combines Confederate flag imagery with a nude blonde woman and a potleaf – from the band’s official webstore.
The Confederate flag’s symbolism is the subject of an emotional debate in the South in the aftermath of the massacre of nine blacks by a white gunman in a Charleston, South Carolina church last month.
White supremacist and suspected killer Dylann Roof had been pictured holding the Confederate flag before he allegedly carried out the murders.
While some people see the flag as a divisive symbol of the South’s proslavery legacy, supporters insist the flag is a honorable symbol of regional pride, a mark of respect for Southern soldiers who died in the American Civil War.
After Rolling Stone pointed out the above-mentioned PANTERA shirt in the July 9 article headlined “Why Are These Bands Still Selling Confederate Flag Merch?”, the item in question disappeared from the official PANTERA webstore with no explanation.
During a July 17 interview with Brandon Woolum of the WAMX-FM radio station in Huntington, West Virgina, Anselmo was asked whether the shirt in question would ever be brought back on the market. He responded: “I don’t know. I don’t make these calls, and honestly, this is a complex subject. My only feeling on the whole thing is, with the world the way it sits today and spins, we have a lot more and more pressing and bigger problems than worrying about some fucking flag, and that’s how I feel about it.”