ALRIGHT, it’s indeed been a minute, and a few things of note have happened, most notably a very stupid act by the illustrious Phillip H. Anselmo (Pantera, Down, Superjoint Ritual/Superjoint) involving racism and public intoxication. Here are my thoughts, not the thought of MM, but the words I wish to portray in this sad, stupid incident, after the fact.

If you are unaware, Phil was performing at Dimebash, yearly concert in the name of the late Dimebag Darrell, and ended the set with an off mic sig heil (fuck proper spelling, FYI) and what looks like the words “WHITE POWER”.

Now, lots of stupid things have happened around Phil, like the falling apart of Pantera, falling apart of Superjoint Ritual, the need for his sobriety shortly after SJR dying, and a few questionable comments in his younger life. Now, to err is human, and Phil has done much erring. But, with how stark his views have always been, his stupid wasn’t going to be anymore innocent, now was it?

Nope.

And sadly, it brings us to the current state of affairs, that he made a colossal fuck up in the public domain, with people filming everything, and on a stage that completely could have been spared what he claims was an inside joke. Which I am all for. The crowd doesn’t have to know every inside joke, or even be shown an inside joke. Really doesn’t matter. But. But; this “joke” was really hard to be able to understand even if he explained it.

And even if he could, this was not the place, the time, or any acceptable circumstance that would have allowed that to be funny to anyone, even the intended target. Now, he does explain that he was drinking fairly heavily of the wite wine and that’s the root of the joke, but if so, the format of racism to provide word play for the punchline really wasn’t going to work. and it didn’t. Which has lead to a huge boycott of all things Anselmo, including Down being removed from several shows, Rob Flynn (Machinehead) and Scott Ian (Anthrax DUH) lambasting him in online videos, and expected severe backlash from the metal public.

All in all, a great moment to show how united metal can get when you do something really dumb.

Now, is all this deserved? quite a bit, yes, and up to a point, every time. But does this mean we simply just cast him aside since he made this one super recent, super public cock-up? No, I say it does not. How many other artists, from any genre, do we let get away with almost exactly the same acts? hell, we have genres like Rap and Hip Hop that’s all about saying that certain races suck, and that they aren’t to be allowed to live, or that all those of a uniform are to die. We have let pop stars make some of the dumbest, most racist comments in the public eye and on record, and yet, they have not even a tithe of the public anger that Phil has encountered. And in his defense, he has publicly apologized, TWICE, which takes some balls, even telling Down and other projects to drop him so they may be able to keep going.

Now, I am way deeper in the metal scene than I am into pop, so that may really be me not seeing the entire picture there, and I will eat crow gladly if you can show me where any rapper or pop star who has made racist claims in the past met this much outrage from their fans and the scene. Phil made a huge miscalculation as to the impact of what he did, and I am taking him at his word that he feels real remorse and wants forgiveness, which for me, I can give. He was part of my soundtrack to childhood, as I am from Texas, and I hate that this happened, Honestly pains me. But I am also only advocating taking him at his word and accepting the apology as factual, no forgetting th eincident. The punishments heaped upon him suck, and that others are being caught up in it really sucks, but it could be seen as fair. Let some heat fall, let him be stripped down a couple pegs. We can’t let the attitude of slaps on the wrist spread, but neither can we be unnecessarily cruel. Don’t bury a man for a mistake he can learn from.

And honestly, this is a learning experience. Pull away from that bottle, because it’s jokes SUCK, Phil. THey suck bad.