After the passing of Tom Petty on Monday evening, topping off an already disheartening two weeks of natural and man-made disasters, it’s important to remember some of the artist’s important moments. One of those moments was when Petty did an interview with Rolling Stone, apologizing for his use of the Confederate flag during the promotion and subsequent tour of his Southern Accents album in the mid 1980s.
I used it onstage during that song, and I regretted it pretty quickly. When we toured two years later, I noticed people in the audience wearing Confederate flag bandanas and things like that. One night, someone threw one onstage. I stopped everything and gave a speech about it. I said, "Look, this was to illustrate a character. This is not who we are. Having gone through this, I would prefer it if no one would ever bring a Confederate flag to our shows again because this isn't who we are."
Incredibly contrite, Petty went on to explain how stupid he felt about using it. The Confederate flag being a symbol a real hate that needed to be separated from “southern pride.” But he also explained how immediate the need was to recognize this symbolic problem because America was sick and needed to fix racial and social justice because it was killing people both literally and figuratively.
Again, people just need to think about how it looks to a black person. It's just awful. It's like how a swastika looks to a Jewish person. It just shouldn't be on flagpoles. 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.
Again, people just need to think about how it looks to a black person. It's just awful. It's like how a swastika looks to a Jewish person. It just shouldn't be on flagpoles.
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.
And what Petty spoke to two years ago is very present today. We will miss Tom Petty for oh so many reasons, an angel amongst the demons.
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