Dec '25 • General discussion
Having honest conversations about sensitive topics without doing harm.
Hi all- I’m going to preface this by saying that what I want to ask/discuss is somewhat fuzzily defined in my brain, but it’s something my brain has been circling around for months and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to express it any better by continuing to go over it in my own head.
If you’ve been on threads today, you’ve probably seen the discussion re: Dolly Parton and racism. I’m going to be honest. As an Appalachian native who can’t hear Dolly speak without thinking of my own grandmother, this one hurts, so I’m aware I likely have some blind spots here.
This is a topic that could go a lot of ways that are worth discussing, but something in particular struck me that I’ve been wrestling with already. Someone noted Dolly’s previous statements when removing the confederate flag and the civil war reenactment from her also renamed “Dixie stampede” and how she said she was unaware of the harm caused by the flag. This person was asking how that was possible. And I am deeply bothered by the fact that I can understand how it’s possible, to the extent that it’s part of my own story. I’m going to copy over what I wrote in reply to the question, asked by the same person, “what does the confederate flag mean to you” because it gets at the core of what I’m wrestling with.
“I want to be really clear that I am only answering your question and not defending or excusing anything. I grew up in rural Appalachia- not far from where Dolly did. I was taught that the civil war was about states rights. I was told an extremely inaccurate and whitewashed version of history. I believed it for a while. I am not proud of any of that. At all. At that time, the confederate flag was presented as a symbol of “southern pride”. Something that was taught as important because of the way that southerners and Appalachians especially were belittled and berated by “the north” and people in “big cities”. The connection between the word Dixie, the confederate flag, and slavery was not acknowledged. None of that is logical and I know that now. But that is how it was, and until I grew up and learned from other sources, and was exposed to other perspectives and facts and a less white washed version of history, I didn’t know better and those things were not connected in my brain. I know this sounds ridiculously naive and ridiculous and it is. The internet wasn’t common where I grew up until the late late 90’s when I was in high school. There was basically no diversity where I grew up, and I wasn’t exposed to many people who thought differently. I was ignorant. I am not proud of this. When I heard other perspectives and more accurate accounts of history, I understood why the flag is a terrible symbol of evil and hatred. That’s what it means to me now But I would be lying if I said that has always been the case. I’m not defending Dolly or anyone else. And also, it’s not unfathomable to me that someone who went from extreme poverty in rural Appalachia to a wealthy superstar who I’m sure was sheltered from many things, would be ignorant about the harm and hate the confederate flag represents. It’s not an excuse. At all. But I can see how it could have happened. I deeply regret my own past ignorance about this.“
Thinking through all of that brought me to the question of, how can we dismantle racism without naming it and acknowledging how insidious it is. When I say that I did not, until I was older and exposed to a more accurate view of history, and therefore did not see the confederate flag for what it is, I’m not excusing that or excusing myself, but I am telling the truth. I wish that I could say I immediately connected the dots beyond what I was taught and saw through that bs immediately, but I did not. I don’t like it, but it’s the truth. And it’s also part of what we are up against in dismantling racism and white supremacy. There are people still believing these things that they’ve been taught. I’m not excusing them. But I don’t know how we get anywhere without acknowledging that fact and seeing it as part of the evil knot of racism. I sometimes see this stance of moral purity that seems to want to condemn people immediately if they admit their own ignorance, or to being wrong and it slams the door shut on conversations that need to be had.
The other part is this that is weighing on me is that so much of Appalachia and the people there are widely caricatured and stereotyped by people in other places. Appalachia has been deeply harmed by exploitation and resource extraction by large corporations and greedy robber barons. I want to be clear that by stating that, I am not in any way saying that is a similar or equal trauma to slavery and racism. It is a trauma though. When you add in the fact that evangelicism in the form or tent revivals etc swept through the area and were used to manipulate people by telling them constantly that they are inherently evil and the scum of the earth and that they deserve a fate much worse than what is happening, so they should be grateful for the opportunity to work and for whatever crumbs fall from the tables of the wealthy, the result is a community of people who are very apt to believe ministers etc because they cannot trust their own logic or instincts because that’s just “the devil” and without appropriate education and exposure to anything else, believe what they’re told about “Dixie” just being about southern pride in a world that is out to get them. So yes, it’s possible for people to think (incorrectly) that the confederate flag isn’t about slavery and isn’t so bad. It’s a mess. It’s wrong. But it’s a real thing that must be dealt with in order to dismantle racism and white supremacy. But I sometimes feel like there isn’t space to name it for what it is and intentionally work through and brainstorm how to effectively undo that false narrative without automatically demonizing an entire group of people because they are believing these lies.
This got very long and is admittedly deeply personal to me, so I’m sure I got some things wrong here in how I stated all this. I feel strongly that there’s some important work to be done here and as someone who came from that culture, it’s my work to do, but it’s a more complicated issue than I usually see acknowledged and I don’t know what to do with that.
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Having honest conversations about sensitive topics without doing harm.
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