In their 20-year career, Blackberry Smoke demonstrates pride in their Southern United States roots through their sound and lyrics. Charlie Starr , the group's vocalist, spoke with Wikimetal about the album You Hear Georgia and the use of the Confederate flag by some local artists.
The symbol originated during the American Civil War in the 19th century and has been displayed in performances and television programs as a form of local pride, used by names such as Tom Petty , Lynyrd Skynyrd , and Keith Richards .
Currently, however, the flag has become a symbol of white supremacists, used offensively in anti-democratic acts such as the recent Capitol Hill invasion , for example.
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During Starr's childhood, some unlikely scenes surrounding the conflict left a mark on him. “We were little kids and we bought these things [with the Confederate flag], it wasn't in our heads that we were celebrating slavery, cruelty, and racism, they didn't teach us that,” he says about a school trip with war souvenirs. “I keep thinking that it's a strange thing to celebrate anyway, not just celebrating the South's fight to maintain slavery, but also celebrating that our country was fighting. (…) Let's learn from this shit from the past and move on.”
Even without using the Blackberry Smoke flag, Starr feels it's important to explain the context in which he first encountered the symbol. “My point has always been that when I looked at that flag – and obviously, I’m white – nobody taught me that it meant supporting racism. It didn’t register in our minds that way,” he continued. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to fly that flag because it hurts people, so we don’t use it.”
For the musician, however, the cancel culture's stance towards everyone who has ever used the symbol is unwarranted. "There comes a point when it's just like that, okay, we understand," he argued. "Things have different meanings for each person, that's not hateful, it's just the truth, a fact."