Slate goes after Dolly Parton for white supremacy
Think it can’t get any crazier than ESPN removing a sports announcer with the last name “Lee?” Slate’s online magazine is like, “hold my beer!”
You’ll have to read the article for yourself. If only we could hear her editors discussing her next assignment, a triggering visit to Cracker Barrel.
At Dolly Parton’s Civil War–themed dinner theater, there’s violence on many sides: https://t.co/fbcO7irmfI pic.twitter.com/G0mlo6CfqJ
— Slate (@Slate) August 24, 2017
It would be difficult to imagine a more sheltered, insular and tone-deaf take on such a silly subject, a freakin’ dinner theater show. However, Aisha Harris, seems up to the challenge. It should be noted, she’s not getting any support so far in her Twitter replies.
Exactly! This is embarrassing!
— Hayley Stills (@HayleyStills) August 25, 2017
Poor Aisha. Everything is “problematic…”
Eventually, we all (hopefully) realize even our faves are problematic. Sorry to spoil your blissful ignorance, Dolly fans. pic.twitter.com/9p698P2M3o
— Aisha Harris (@craftingmystyle) August 24, 2017
The same week that a statue of Robert E. Lee led to the death of an innocent woman in Charlottesville, Virginia, I watched him oink and squeal in a race for the fate of the country. Lee, this time, was a piglet—part of Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede, a Medieval Times–style dine-in attraction where seven nights a week and at occasional weekend matinees, the South rises again…
Later in the article, Aisha goes on to imply that her diatribe led to Dixie Stampede taking down their promo video containing the song, gasp!, DIXIE!
“…here is an audience-captured video from 2015 of the Confederate army riding out to cheers and snippets of the minstrel song “Dixie…”
“Dixie,” is just some old racist minstrel song, really? “Dixie, did come out of the minstrel show tradition, but it was a favorite throughout the country and a favorite of Abraham Lincoln, who had it played at campaign events. It was also played as General Robert E. Lee surrendered. But who am I kidding? Does Aisha Harris care about history?
It all seems innocent enough until you begin to see relics of the War Between the States: waiters dressed in Union uniforms dropping food on the plates of happy patrons hungry for nostalgia and smiling men on horseback wearing Confederate uniforms. As one colleague pointed out with a mix of horror and delight, recalling the deliberately offensive fictional musical from The Producers, it’s Springtime for Hitler…
…around 4:30, the crowds began to roll in, dressed as though they were going to spend a leisurely couple of hours at a baseball game…I unsurprisingly stood out in my singleness…Not to mention my blackness. I was surprised to see more people of color than I expected—an Asian family here, a Latino family there. There were smatterings of black people…Some were one half of an interracial couple, while others appeared to be there with their white co-workers or friends. Such is the appeal of Dolly, it would seem, that it crosses all racial borders…
Go read her Onion article for yourself for a good laugh!