Ring of Honor Champion, Cody Rhodes, certainly knows how to inspire fans to have a change of heart.

The WWE veteran was recently featured in an interview in Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard. He talked to Justin Barrasso about his participation in the Northeast Wrestling (NEW) Championships’ Holiday Havoc in Waterbury, Connecticut.

In the interview, he also shared his thoughts on the political unrest and racial tension in America today and had this to say about it:

“It bothers me, but even surprises me when racism pops up. I had a fan tweet to tell me he’d been a fan for a long time, but he had the Confederate flag as his profile picture. I said, ‘Hey man, you’ve got to get rid of that,’ and he did, but what surprised me about that interaction was the amount of apologists who defended what the Confederate flag actually stood for. That always surprises me–that there are still apologists, essentially, for racism.”

“We don’t need to be educating people on the Confederate flag, it just needs to be gone. In Germany, there are not swastikas on every corner. That part of their past is history and they’ve progressed. I’m always shocked when I see apologists for racism, which has no place. We’re all in this together. Why would we ever divide?”

Meanwhile, Rhodes’ wife, Brandi Rhodes, was recently interviewed by WrestlingInc.com owner, Raj Giri, and had this to say about her husband’s comments.

“I honestly don’t correlate any of it to the political climate and anything that is happening right now. I think people are just going to be people, and racism is a thing. If people have an inclination to be racist then they are going to be, and there is not a whole lot that you can do about it. The very positive moment that was posted on Social Media with Cody being from the South and, you know, in the South, a lot of things that are said where Northerners wouldn’t allow for the things to be said, and things like that. He has a fixation on that flag, and it is something that he will not tolerate. He just happened to say something to the guy about it. The guy came up to him and said that he is a big fan, and Cody said, well, you know, thank you, but it’s time to change that picture. The guy said, you know what? You are absolutely right, and it couldn’t have worked out any better than that. That is wonderful, and I think in that case, it was someone who wasn’t meaning to portray a racist message.”

Cody Rhodes recently dominated over Kota Ibushi with his signature finishing move ‘Cross-Rhodes’ at Wrestle Kingdom 12 in early January.