SAN DIEGO, CA - AUGUST 03: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers kick off their summer 2014 tour in support of their latest album 'Hypnotic Eye' at Viejas Arena on August 3, 2014 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images)

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Tom Petty has a message for the Confederate flag: Don’t come around here no more.

In light of South Carolina removing the Confederate flag from its statehouse, “Refugee” singer Petty has come forward to say that his decision to include the offending banner during his stage shows was “downright stupid.”

In an article published by Rolling Stone, Gainesville, Florida-born Petty admitted that he was “pretty ignorant” about the meaning of the flag as a child. For his tour to support his 1985 album “Southern Accents,” Petty used the Confederate flag as marketing material, a decision he now cringes over.

See video: Kid Rock Tells Confederate Flag Protestors to 'Kiss My Ass' (Video)

“It was a downright stupid thing to do,” the singer said.

Petty goes on to explain that he used the flag because of the “Southern Accents” song “Rebels,” which was written from the point of view of someone who “talks about the traditions that have been handed down from family to family for so long that he almost feels guilty about the war.”

Unfortunately, Petty’s use of the flag onstage caught on with his audience, and on a tour two years later, “I noticed people in the audience wearing Confederate flag bandannas and things like that. One night, someone threw one onstage. I stopped everything and gave a speech about it. I said, ‘Look, this was to illustrate a character. This is not who we are. Having gone through this, I would prefer it if no one would ever bring a Confederate flag to our shows again because this isn’t who we are.'”

Also Read: NASCAR to Fans: Leave Confederate Flags at Home

The situation “left me feeling stupid,” Petty said.

“Again, people just need to think about how it looks to a black person. It’s just awful,” he admitted. “It’s like how a swastika looks to a Jewish person. It just shouldn’t be on flagpoles.”

Petty goes on to reflect on the current state of race relations in America.

Also Read: 'Dukes of Hazzard' Pulled From TV Land Lineup Amid Confederate Flag Controversy

“The way we’re losing black men and citizens in general is horrific. What’s going on in society is unforgivable,” Petty said. “As a country, we should be more concerned with why the police are getting away with targeting black men and killing them for no reason. That’s a bigger issue than the flag.”

Petty’s remorse stands in marked contrast to Kid Rock, who last week offered his own message to those who criticize his own use of the Confederate flag.

“Please tell the people who are protesting to kiss my ass,” the rock star said in a statement to Fox News.

21 Times Hollywood Tackled Race Issues (Photos)

Selma (2014) - David Oyelowo plays civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in a biopic that explores the civil rights leader's role in the 1965 Selma protests.
Harpo Films/ Plan B Entertainment
Dear White People (2014) - This biting satire follows four black college students making their way in "post-racial" America.
Homegrown Pictures
12 Years a Slave (2013) - Chiwetel Ejiofor led the 2014 Best Picture winner, which is a true story about a freeborn black man who spent over a decade in slavery in the pre-Civil War South.
Fox
Django Unchained (2012) - Quentin Tarantino's controversial Oscar winner follows a freed slave who fights to liberate his wife from a brutal plantation owner.
The Weinstein Co.
Gran Torino (2008) - Clint Eastwood plays a grizzled Korean War veteran who reluctantly takes his young Hmong neighbor under his wing.
Warner Bros.
Crash (2004) - 2006's Best Picture Winner traces the intersecting lives of people of different races in present day Los Angeles.
Bob Yari Productions
American History X (1998) - Edward Norton plays the leader of a violent neo-Nazi gang who reevaluates his life when he sees his little brother going down the same path.
New Line
A Time to Kill (1996) - Based on the best-selling John Grisham novel, Samuel L. Jackson plays a man on trial for murdering the two white supremacists who raped his daughter who turns to an untested lawyer played by Matthew McConaughey.
Warner Bros.
Schindler's List (1993) - Steven Spielberg's unflinching look at the Holocaust through the eyes of a man who saved thousands of Polish Jews.
Universal
Malcolm X (1992) - Spike Lee and Denzel Washington teamed up for the true story of the inflammatory Nation of Islam leader.
Warner Bros.
School Ties (1992) - Brendan Fraser led this all-star cast (which included Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) in which he played tbe only Jewish student at an exclusive 1950's prep school.
Paramount
Boyz n the Hood (1991) - John Singleton's hard-hitting look at life in South Central Los Angeles saw Cuba Gooding Jr. trying to avoid the pitfalls of life in the ghetto.
Columbia Pictures
Dances with Wolves (1990) - Kevin Costner won multiple Oscars for this tale of a Civil War soldier who comes to identify with an oppressed native tribe in the American West.
Orion Pictures
Do the Right Thing (1989) - Spike Lee's searing portrait of a day in the life of a mostly black Brooklyn neighborhood during an intense heat wave.
Universal
Mississippi Burning (1988) - The true story of the disappearance of three civil rights protesters in 1960's Mississippi and the FBI agents who investigated.
Orion Pictures
The Color Purple (1985) - Whoopi Goldberg was nominated for Best Actress in this story of a black woman at the turn of the century fighting for her place in society.
Amblin
Blazing Saddles (1974) - Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor collaborated on this hysterical look at a black sheriff taking charge of a frontier town.
Warner Bros.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) - Sidney Poitier stars in this groundbreaking film about a white woman who brings her black fiancee home to meet her parents.
Columbia Pictures
In the Heat of the Night (1967) - Sidney Poitier again challenged conventions when he portrayed a black detective investigating a murder in a rural Southern town.
United Artists
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - Gregory Peck cemented his place in film history as Atticus Finch, a white lawyer defending a black man accused of rape, in the adaptation of Harper Lee's masterpiece.
Universal
Birth of a Nation (1915) - Considered the first true narrative film, it attracted widespread criticism for its portrayal of African Americans and its glorification of the KKK.
D.W. Griffith

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The film industry has never shied away from the controversial topic

Selma (2014) - David Oyelowo plays civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in a biopic that explores the civil rights leader's role in the 1965 Selma protests.

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