Frankly, Scarlett, you weren't just selfish, you were a damned racist, too

[UTUSN]

Once again, a gossip website/Gawker delivers sharper commentary than pundits.

*********QUOTE********

http://gawker.com/the-southern-belle-is-a-racist-fiction-1647358414

[font size=5]The "Southern Belle" Is a Racist Fiction[/font]

Sam BIDDLE

Sometime between Reconstruction, this episode of MTV: True Life, and the hundred-thousandth wedding held on a plantation in South Carolina, the term Southern Belle became just another friendly identifier to put in your Twitter bio, a throwaway regional label no weightier than Cali Surfer Dude. But the difference between SoCal pride and honoring your Southern gentility is that the latter celebrates the ugliest stain in America's history.

The notion of the Southern Belle dates back to the 19th century, when it was a cheery name given to a specific sort of white person who flourished in the American South before the end of the Civil War. Belles were a few very specific things: white, bourgeois, and almost certainly beneficiaries of the slave trade, married to the plantation owners whose wealth was secured through black chattel. ....

But [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]praising[/FONT] the loyalty and generosity of [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]the Southern Belle is about as cheery as celebrating the camaraderie of the Hitler Youth, the fresh air of the Trail of Tears, or the cardiovascular benefits of the Bataan Death March[/FONT]. You can find something fun in any horror of history! And the Belles of today do exactly that—if you bring up sl*very, they'll point to all the nice parts about the Old South. The architecture, the parties, the sipping of cool drinks on warm porches. Oh, the fields? Those fields are just for growing delicious strawberries and tomatoes for folks to enjoy. Nothing more.

Every perk and beautiful part of white plantation life was created through black slavery. If Belles were patient and gracious, it's because forced black labor enabled it. If the Southern life was pretty and sophisticated, it's because slavery afforded it. Everything pleasant about Belle-hood was a function of human suffering on a vast scale—it's conceptually impossible to separate the society bankrolled by slavery from the slavery itself. ....

Unfortunately for the nostalgics, the Old South is synonymous with the Antebellum south, which in turn is synonymous with the slave economy. Bu-bu-but tradition! Sorry. Your tradition was someone else's nightmare. Pining for those days, even if you're too detached from national history to realize it, is pining for the comforts of whiteness when black people were property. You ignore it, you can romanticize it, and you can deny it, but you don't get to pick and choose the portions of history that actually happened; the Old South is a soiled rag, too rank with national shame to be wrung out. Antebellum America cannot be redeemed for the sake of your wedding, fraternity mixer, or lifestyle website.

So: Please pick a different party venue, because otherwise your wedding is going to be shitty and racist.

*************UNQUOTE*************

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. One can easily notice this carries over into a wider notion as well.

If the Southern life was pretty and sophisticated, it's because slavery afforded it.

The accumulation of wealth is based on unequal exchange, and the exploitation of others. After all, if all you got for doing some amount of work was an exchange commensurate with the amount of time and effort you put into it, we'd all end up being wealthy in direct proportion to the amount of time we spend working. Capitalism as a whole is based upon the notion that we can underpay labour and overcharge consumers to create 'profit' which then accumulates to those who put in the capital that underlies the enterprise.

So the sophisticated lifestyles of the rich and famous are based upon extracting greater wealth for them (or their ancestors, from whom they inherited) at the expense of others. We may have largely done away with outright slavery, but exploitation is alive and well in modern societies the world over, either through the exploitation of their own people, exploitation of outsiders, or, most often, both.

[enlightenment]

2. +1

since I can't rec the post.

[silverweb]

3. Well said.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]K&R!

[northoftheborder]

6. K&R

[merrily]

7. +1 I wonder if the greedies of today would have given up slavery or would they just have moved

their slaves to another country?

[brer cat]

10. They didn't have to move the slaves,

they found plenty to exploit in other countries.

[merrily]

11. That's kind of what inspired my question.

[freshwest]

25. So obvious, it's sad this should even have to be reiterated, though you did it well. K&R here.

[Louisiana1976]

30. +1 million. America still has people who, even though they are getting paid, are in effect slaves.

They are better known as minimum wage workers.

[Enthusiast]

65. PLUS ONE, a whole bunch!

[Zorra]

87. Yep. You ain't just whistlin' Dixie, nt

[hedgehog]

4. Ouch! That's going to leave a mark!

[world wide wally]

5. Not disputing your point, but if you are going to be honest about it, the women had little to do

with the structure of southern society just as they had little to do with any other society because they have never been allowed to shape society. Their biggest transgression was probably enjoying the perks they had with little regard to the cost of others.
In the end, it was designed and perpetrated by southern men.

[merrily]

9. Women everywhere have always had an important role in shaping society. For one thing, they always

raised both their male and female offspring. Many also influenced their husbands and fathers. They did not hold office or vote, but they have always done a lot to shape society. Among other things, they participated in the underground railroad and the abolitionist movement.

If Southern women who had slaves doing all the work women typically do could have voted and legislated, would they have given up their slaves? I doubt it.

[moriah]

55. Actually, in slave-holding households, just like most rich households from medieval times and on....

... children were more raised by slaves or servants than they were by their own parents. Poorer households had women doing other work and the kiddos were raised by grandparents.

The whole "nuclear family" concept is actually quite new.

[merrily]

57. There is a difference between doing the work and instilling values.

Also, I very much disagree that, in America, poorer households had grandparents raising kids. For one thing, many grandparents were not even in this country. Others may have needed care themselves.

I am not sure what other work you are referring to that you think kept poor women far away from their kids before women got the vote, but I don't think that was so, either. Whether mom was cooking or doing laundry or cooking or anything else, the kids were there, too, "helping" and learning as they went along.

And, even if grandparents or other members of the extended family were involved, it was probably the females teaching the kids moment to moment, whether it was how to break an egg or how to say please and thank you, not grandpa or Uncle. So, still women. Even as to those who had slaves, it was mostly women raising the kids.

The early editions of Dr. Spock reference kids joining their parents for dinner and maybe a bedtime story. But, the governess or nanny was also female.

And, in the end, the people most kids want to please most, want approval from most, during their formative years, are parents.

Do you really believe women had no role in shaping the nation's youth and society as a whole until they got the vote?

[moriah]

58. What, second generation households didn't exist?

By the time slavery was firmly established, we had third generations here.

On poor farms, that meant the kids were doing work, but not always the same work as the mom. My grandmother had her paternal grandmother living with them (her grandfather died young, and wasn't the first generation to come here), and when she was small it was her grandmother raising her. After that, she was out in the fields doing work like picking cotton -- yes, white people picked cotton too, especially poor German immigrants (they still clung to their German roots, and spoke some of the language) during the Depression. It was their only cash crop, the rest was for supporting the household, and they were way too poor to afford a cotton gin. It wasn't until she was about 12 (since they didn't want her to marry until she was 18) that her mother started teaching her about cooking, canning, and preserving, the stuff she'd done, or trusted the kids to milk the cows -- which was done by the older children and her Mom and Dad.

It's traditional for the younger folks to take care of their parents, especially a widowed elderly parent, and yes, they had work to do, too. They had the work that was easiest for them -- minding the young grandchildren while their parents worked their tails off, and doing things like sewing. It's far easier to mind a three year old than it is to pick cotton or vegetables.

[merrily]

62. My post does not say no second generation households at all existed, does it? New immigrants

were only one factor of several my post addressed and not the most important, either. And I never said first generation immigrants were the entire population of the US. (Who would say such a thing? And why pretend I said it?) I never said all grandparents needed to be taken care of themselves, either. I gave a couple of examples.

I also said, as far as raising kids minute to minute, day to day, teaching them, instilling values in them, it mostly came down to women anyway, whether a female slave, a grandmother, a mother, an Auntie or a governess. Do you disagree with that? Do you think that, in general, men had more to do with child rearing than women? ?

That was the original point wasn't it? Whether or not women had nothing at all to do with shaping the nation until they got the vote or whether they made their influence felt through things like raising men, their husbands, participation in institutions churches and schools, abolition movements, etc? Again, I ask, do you really believe women had no influence at all on shaping this nation before they got the vote?

BTW, the farm experience is one thing, city experience is another. Sometimes families were living in one or two rooms in a teneament and mom was attached to her kids at the hip, but again, that was not the point, either.

[moriah]

84. More like until they had the option not to swear to "obey" their husbands.

Are *you* suggesting the lack of suffrage was the only thing holding women back, instead of a whole sheaf of societal constructs designed to subjugate them?

[merrily]

85. I thought you were seriously debating that women had no role in raising kids.

Or that you genuinely believed I was saying all households were immigrant households.

But, apparently, you will pivot from that to whatever, without skipping a beat or even acknowledging that you've shifted gears because your real point is something else entirely.

I tend to take what people are posting at face value and respond accordingly. Sorry I wasted my time.

[moriah]

86. The point was that women had little power in the past, even over their own households.

When you have to swear to obey your husband (which includes letting him discipline children and not interfering even if you disagree), you DON'T have the same kind of influence that mothers do today, in a nuclear family.

But you seem so focused on suffrage that I felt I had to point out other ways women were constrained.

[Warpy]

8. The Belle was just as trapped as the slaves were

since her only profession was marriage and at marriage she ceased to exist as a legal person, all her property and civil rights given to her husband. While the slaves had to shuck and jive and say "yas, massa," she was expected to be sweet, silent and decorative while she worked like a plow mule keeping Massa's guests happy and the household organized properly.

She had no real say in any of it.

[Orsino]

70. Some women did own slaves, and there was no great rush to manumit.

Nominally-chivalrous knights of old participated in and benefited from the terror of the feudal warlords, and individually were powerless to change the system. The same could be said of noble women, but as women they were denied the chance to be contributing citizen-subjects. They were pampered playthings.

[Warpy]

75. The Belle, by very definition, was an ornament

If she had slaves as part of a wedding gift, as soon as the "I do" was said, the slaves belonged to her new husband.

If she owned her own land and slaves through widowhood or inheritance with no male relative to take on the "burden," she was no Belle.

[Orsino]

79. Scarlett O'Hara was no belle?

If we're talking about an ideal, an incredibly narrow definition would be required to rule her out.

[Warpy]

80. Not after she stole her sister's fiance

and took over his business. Once she did that, she was only a baby step above a Yankee woman, an object of scorn and definitely "not quality."

[Orsino]

82. I think a whole lot of southern belles' facades crumbled in the war. n/t

[chrisa]

12. Who is Scarlett?

[baldguy]

14. O'Hara

Gone with the wind.

[chrisa]

16. Oh. Thanks!

[truebluegreen]

15. O'Hara--from Gone With The Wind. nt

[chrisa]

17. Thanks!

[bigwillq]

60. Scarlett

Has nothing to do with this thread but this video always makes me laugh. I know, I know. Probably not right to laugh at someone when they fall, but fall vids are hysterical to me.

[Nye Bevan]

13. Southern Belles are the targets of today's two minutes hate?

And is having a plantation wedding any worse than having a wedding in a European castle that was a center of brutal medieval feudalism?

[bettyellen]

18. I read somewhere that serfs had more time off than modern workers do

[Warpy]

51. They did for a long time

because one of the benefits of the Church was all the yearly feast days which the aristocrats had to put up with lest they get excommunicated and overthrown by their neighboring aristocrats in good standing and their lands divided.

In that way, they did have more free time although the church claimed part of it.

[bettyellen]

83. My company's foreign staff gets a lot more time off than us, and although they're paid lower.....

it's considered great compensation over there in China and and Korea. They have a lot of national holidays. And we are discourage to take a whole week off ever. Lots of four day weekends for me!

[kwassa]

19. Probably yes. Unless the feudal lords actually owned the peasants.

The Southern plantation wealth was based directly on slave ownership. The memory is much more recent, and more painful, than the Middle Ages, as well.

Aside from which, how many Americans get married in European castles?

[Orsino]

71. The memories of American slavery are much more alive, and therefor hurtful, in America...

...than are memories of medieval feudalism.

[LanternWaste]

88. Must be rather easy to live in a world in which social criticism is inferred as Orwellian melodrama.

Must be rather easy to live in a world in which social criticism is inferred as Orwellian melodrama. Cue the oppressive music score...

[gollygee]

20. Holy crap, that's an awesome rant!

My sister suggested one of my kids be a "Southern Belle" for Halloween. Uh, not gonna happen.

[pinboy3niner]

21. The costume has possibilities...

[gollygee]

22. ROFL

No one under my age (45) would get it. It think I'm just barely old enough! But that is hilarious!

[oberliner]

28. I would hope they would

Carol Burnett show isn't that long ago, is it?

[gollygee]

39. Ended in 1978

Which has been a while now. I loved that show when I was little.

[oberliner]

42. Reruns in the 80's and 90's

I definitely remember watching them during the 80s for sure.

[gollygee]

43. Oh

I don't remember seeing it in reruns.

[Fawke Em]

68. I'm a bit younger than that and remember it.

My Dad LOVED Carol Burnett and that skit was his favorite. Had him in stitches every time.


"This ole thing? I saw it in the window and had to have it."

[pipi_k]

72. Loved her show

and that was one of the funniest episodes ever!

[LawDeeDah]

23. Thanks

[Octafish]

24. Imagine if the South had won the Civil War?

[oberliner]

26. Those ornaments were all over the country - not just the South

Those types of offensive decorative statues were quite prominent in the north-east and the west.

[maddiemom]

74. Yes, very popular in the fifties on tract, middle class lawns for those who were into lawn

ornaments. Full disclosure: we had one in our yard for a while, which increasingly embarrassed my mom (it was a gift from friends because we actually had a couple of horses and did work as a hitching post). Mom then painted its face and hands white. Unfortunately it was a flat white, which made it look like an albino---even more embarrassing. Eventually it was stolen from my daughter's college housing, (where she'd had it for one day).

[pinboy3niner]

27. I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.

[Cleita]

34. I remember those when I was a kid, even in Calif. but to be fair

only the wealthy and upper middle class used them. I never saw them in tract home neighborhoods.

[riderinthestorm]

35. Thats a horse hitching post,fyi.

You tie the horse's lead to the ring, so this particular item does have a useful function.

That the hitching post is an AA is a reflection of their historic status as servants (which is why it's also incredibly racist). But the truly rich have real grooms to handle visiting horses. This particular artifact would have been used by those less wealthy who didn't have a live human groom back in the day...

Just a bit of trivia...

[Cleita]

37. They must have been left over from an earlier time because

I don't remember horses being kept in the city at that time. Most of the people who had horses boarded them on ranches in the countryside.

[riderinthestorm]

38. Agreed. I have no idea why any "modern" city person would have one other than they're a racist

Maybe some kind of secret code?

Status symbol?

Regardless, you don't see many of them anymore I suspect because people finally became ashamed to have them prominently placed in the front yard.

Good!

[lunasun]

52. Two homes in a nasty metro suburban neighborhood near me way way north of mason Dixon line

have them outside their house
Down the street in the same area a house flies confed flag and Gadsden flag
Yes you better believe it is code for " something"

[aikoaiko]

29. Isnt this the guy who said we should bully nerds?

Claiming southern belle status or having a wedding at a plantation is not an endorsement of slavery.

[ncjustice80]

32. Yes, it is.

Everything about the Old South is disgusting, and you are a fucking racist piece of shit if you have a Plantation Wedding.

[aikoaiko]

36. I think its a little more complicated than that.

Plantations were built within the horrible institutions of slavery.

Our economic masters have been exploiting people and labor to built grand homes, buildings, parks and other now public places. In Europe feudal lords built castles. Most people are just looking for a beautiful place to hold their weddings.

[Nye Bevan]

40. Is it OK to use plantation houses for anything?

Or should they all be demolished?

[gollygee]

41. IMO

If plantation houses were used in a way that was respectful to the full history of what happened at them, it would be an entirely different issue. But people are having weddings and sometimes even trying to visually recreate the era of slavery, and celebrating it. That is the problem. A museum that told about that era without revisionist history about slavery - with a true and honest portrayal of slavery - would not be the same as the current practice of romanticizing slavery, the era of slavery, the owners of slaves, etc.

Let's say the commander of a concentration camp had a stunningly beautiful home at the edge of the concentration camp, and that home was wonderfully restored. Would it seem romantic to have your wedding there? Would it being a beautiful home make it seem romantic? I'd spend the whole time wondering about what it looked like during that time, what was happening to the prisoners during the holocaust, etc. And I'd feel the same way at a southern plantation. I can't even imaging having a wedding at a place like that.

[ncjustice80]

45. The majority should be demolished.

I think a few should be restored for historical significance as museum purposes (with proper respect paid to history).

The rest, along with all Confederate monuments, need to be demolished. Nothing that glorifies the Old South or the Confederacy should be allowed to exist on government owned property.

[Adrahil]

48. No... We don't destroy history......

Even unpleasant history.

[ncjustice80]

49. Monuments glorifying enslavers and traitors arent history.

[Nye Bevan]

50. So tear down the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial?

Both Washington and Jefferson were racist slaveholders who owned hundreds of slaves each.

[gladium et scutum]

53. Don't forget

The White House and the Capital building, both built by slaves and occupied by men that owned slaves.

[ncjustice80]

54. Lol so you support monuments glorifying people that launched open rebellion against the US

For the purpose of upholding SLAVERY??? WOW. Wouldyou support a statue honoring Hitler, because its "history"???

[Throd]

64. We should bulldoze all the California Missions too.

To show how progressive we are.

[ncjustice80]

69. Lol I dont know why people who identify as progressive would oppose bulldozing the monuments at a

Minimum. All that confedarte statuary is literally no different than it would be having Hitler statues all over Germany

[Throd]

73. Bulldozing unpleasant history is a dangerous precedent.

[Adrahil]

78. Simply because I don't support official approved histories.

When we have history that's "permitted," that's a very dangerous precedent. That kind of thing never ends well.

[ncjustice80]

81. Uhhh, is there a different history then the one where

Racist slaveholders plunged the nation into a bloody hell to try to prop up their vile institution?

We can have monuments remembering the the war happened, monuments honoring northern soldiers, monuments giving tribute to the slaves. We dont need doagusting statuary that tries to make the confederate filth look "heroic". That in and of itself is revisionist histort supported by teahadists and rethugs.

[Adrahil]

77. I would have preferred laws preventing their erection in the first place...

.... but I don't advocate the destruction of existing monuments, no.

[Adrahil]

76. The problem is that such "cleansing" is subjective.

I mean, I'm sure the Taliban thought they were doing the right thing when they destroyed thousand year old Buddhist monuments... eliminating those horrible monuments that blaspheme.

We can't correct history by erasing it. Imagine how much poorer our historical and cultural knowledge would be if we just bulldozed anything we considered as glorifying someone or something horrible. For example, the extravagant excesses of the French court were horrific. But does that mean we want to destroy Versailles?

[stonecutter357]

66. .

[Adrahil]

47. Ummmmm....... Can't agree. NT

[LuvLoogie]

31. Oh Maggie! You are the most raciest! Can I ring that belle!!

My apologies. Couldn't resist.

[Corruption Inc]

33. Most "Old South" crap is racist

and those so inclined will argue that it's not, regardless of reality.

[Tom Ripley]

44. +1000

[La Lioness Priyanka]

61. yup

[betsuni]

46. As Paula Deen is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!

Sunset, dramatic music, end scene.

[moriah]

56. I've called my customer service persona "doing the Southern Belle routine"....

.... because I have a Southern accent, and I always caught more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Even when I lived in Queens, my accent seemed to make people go out of their way to be kind to me. Obviously they realized I wasn't from around there. And I was always polite and used "please" and "Thank you" often, which made me stand out even more in a city where people were so busy that "thank you" was often forgotten. Then again, it might just have been the assumptions I had about "Yankees" going in was less than flattering, so I didn't expect the type of kindness I saw often down here. Here, if you see a woman changing a tire on the side of the road and you're a man, you generally pull over and help. Two cops helped me on the Long Island Expressway during rush hour when that happened, which was probably safer since I'd been in the left lane and had to pull over onto the left shoulder, not the right.

That being said, I do know how to change my own tires, and was getting out to do it myself when they pulled over.

[DesertDiamond]

59. Wow, well said! "Ah for the lovely days when we were rich because we OWNED people!"

[Enthusiast]

63. K&R! I like this!

[alfredo]

67. If the south had won, they'd be an aristocracy, not a democracy. The landed gentry

would rule the south.

We can see that from the GOP, which is dominated by southern lawmakers and attitudes.