I hate when celebrities pretend. It's his car, but that flag had the same meaning/no-meaning when he bought it. It is an icon, now he's going to ruin it over political correctness run amok.
There's nothing politically correct about thinking the Confederate flag has negative associations or connections to white supremacy. It does.
There is correct and politically correct. I agree that removing actual flags from government buildings, license plates, decals, is the right thing to do. But this isn't a flag or even a replica car. It's one of the original General Lee cars from an iconic TV show. It's a collectors item worth $110k... Painting over it is complete over the top political correctness.
He actually drives the car in public. It doesn't just sit in a collectors garage. There already was controversy a few years ago about him driving to the Masters (in Georgia) with that car. So if he was motivated by political correctness, he wouldn't have waited this long. He's realized that it has meaning to it beyond the TV show, and he doesn't want to drive around advertising it.
I see this no differently than buying the BTTF Delorean or Goldfinger DB5 and changing their iconic look. Only a colossal imbecile is going to associate that car with the history of racism in America. It's a pretty well known car from a tongue in cheek TV show.
Only a colossal imbecile is going to think that being used on a TV show changes the meaning of the Confederate flag. It has always been a white supremacist symbol. That's what most people have realized.
It's collectors car from a ridiculous TV show... painting over it won't whitewash history. Also, nobody gives a shit about the confederate flag anymore. It's over. Donald Trump is the latest click bait fad of the week.
True, I'm a bit biased. I have a store that exclusively sells confederate flags and cakes for gay weddings.
You're biased because you refuse to take it seriously. You want to laugh it off and continue to think of it as a yee-haw/rebel symbol, not the racist/white supremacist symbol that it always has been.
I'm not denying it has racist connotations, but I'm absolutely not taking it seriously. Removing a flag from public view does what exactly? Racists will have a new symbol to replace it and Facebook activists have already moved on.
Removing it from public view because you acknowledge that it's a symbol of racism/white supremacy does do something for the underlying problem: you're being honest about the past and not continuing to pretend that it isn't real. Laughing it off and claiming that recognizing a historical fact somehow qualifies as "political correctness" is not constructive.