Is Phil Anselmo a Nazi? Or just an asshole?

When I was growing up, one of the bands that had a near and dear place in my heart was Pantera. That hasn't changed, nor will it ever in all honesty. They are the band I've seen the most live in concert, the band whose albums and t-shirts and stickers I'd bought in my teens. In retrospect, Pantera is probably my all-time favorite band from that era.

As the years would go by, bad things happened for the band as a whole, namely they broke up. If you were a diehard fan of the band though, you probably saw that coming. There was friction among singer Phil Anselmo and Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul, and this was known for a long time. So they split, Phil went and did his thing with his many side projects and Dime and Vinnie formed Damageplan. At least they were all still making music.

Then, in 2004, Dime was murdered on stage by an insane fan. Phil was pointed at and derided by fans because of his constant shit-talking on Dime and Vinnie in the media and at various shows (I myself heard him once shit on Damageplan at a Superjoint Ritual show in 2003, though in his defense he did follow it up by saying he loved them all).

So yeah, it hasn't been easy being a Pantera fan.

Oh, and Phil Anselmo just got busted doing a Nazi salute and saying white power.

...sigh...

Okay, I'm going to say this right now: accusations about Phil being a racist piece of shit is nothing new. In my youth, I met Phil, and I know others that have as well, and we've all come to the same conclusion: he's a fucking asshole. But is he really racist? Well...it's kind of hard to think he isn't at this point. In the past, we've all given Phil a free pass because of what all he accomplished with Pantera, but with blatant shit like this, there's no free fucking pass here.

The music that Phil crafted with Dime, Vinnie, and Rex will always be impactful and mean the world to me, but for the love of fucking Satan, fuck Phil right up his fucking ass.

Now, one more thing: metal fans, and Pantera fans especially, usually get associated with being racist fucks. As a metalhead myself (well, not as much as I used to be, but still) I can wholeheartedly say that not all of us are racist fuckheads. Granted there are quite a bit, that's for sure, but not all of us are, and we shouldn't have ever given Phil a free pass over this shit to begin with.

I do believe that Phil is definitely unhinged (he was declared technically dead once or twice back in the day due to his drug use) and he's at that point where he literally gives no fucks about anything at all, and as much as I want to give him the benefit of the doubt about his excuse why he did it (he claims it was an inside joke due to there being the presence and consumption of white wine back stage), I don't think I can.

So hey, Phil, fuck on off and go home with that shit. And fucking hell, get your shit together. The fact that you're still alive and Dime isn't illustrates how fucked up the world is.