Stars from the hit CBS TV show "The Dukes of Hazzard" are speaking out about the controversy surrounding the iconic car's Confederate flag. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Tuesday, actors John Schneider and Tom Wopat, who played Bo and his cousin Luke, respectively, along with the show's creator, Gy Waldron, agreed that the criticism was unfair.
"I have never had an African American come up to me and have any problem with it whatsoever," Schneider said, adding that "the whole politically correct generation has gotten way out of hand."
Wopat noted that things have changed in the last 40 years and felt "fortunate to be living in a time when we can address some of the injustices of the past," but he said the car was innocent.
Their comments came as statues of Confederate generals and soldiers are being torn down across the country and NASCAR moves to ban the flag from its races, while the Confederate emblem is being removed from the Mississippi state flag.
Attention has now turned to "The Dukes of Hazzard" Dodge Charger, which features the Confederate battle flag painted atop the vehicle, as calls to have the car removed from a northern Illinois auto museum echo across the nation.
"There are 80 million descendants of the Confederacy — one out of four people has that heritage," Jones said. "Most of them have no problem with the flag at all. This was a family show. Black families watched it for generations. I know this. I had a [congressional] office right there in the Martin Luther King district. King's right-hand man Andy Young is a dear friend of mine. We couldn’t care less about rebel flags."
Schneider added that "The Dukes of Hazzard" did not divide people, but brought them together.
"Mom, grandma, everyone wanted to watch it together. But who benefits from division?" he says. "'The Dukes of Hazzard' has been shot down, I believe unfairly. We haven’t missed a generation yet, but we may miss this next one."
Waldron weighed in on the subject, recalling how both flags were proudly displayed in his neighborhood as a child.
"I had relatives fight on both sides of the Civil War and we honored both the American and Confederate flags," he explained. "No one even connected the Confederate flag with slavery. It was simply a part of our Southern culture."
That said, Waldron added that he did "wholeheartedly support the Black Lives Matter movement and its quest to address racism around the world."
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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