It was OK to say Negro, Colored, Black etc. times change
They were formed in 2006, not 1906.
Yep, that’s my take as well.
I’ve been in diversity and inclusivity meetings lately, and have had otherwise smart, thoughtful people (and not just cis white males) share things like "I recently learned that I should stop saying “pow wow” ", or “I just learned what microaggressions are.”
It kind of blows my mind, but I think people, even well-intended people, just don’t pay attention, are too self-absorbed and not self-aware, and otherwise fail at learning things that are not necessary for getting through the day.
What they won’t tell you is what the A stands for. It is dark.
Yeah. Those who want to can still see the word there and love (or hate) them. They should have gone for Lady B. It would seem “conscious”. But then again that might not be something they want to advertise. When you think about it the old name of the band is a perfect descriptor of the engine behind most lynchings that have occurred.
True, drad dog – but then again anything other than a complete name change will be seen as “they are leaving a marker there for those who know the back story”.
If NASCAR can take down the rebel flag, then a music group can drop the “Antebellum”; of course that the associations have been known for years, and were carried on because it was well seen by the audiences. Hey, sure, sometimes an organization realizes that the audiences change and retaining some old identity signifier will be Bad For Future Sales; that is a perfectly fine reason to divest from it.
Eonwe, well but that is not unusual or surprising. Just to pick on one of your examples, the majority even of “otherwise smart, thoughtful people” *will not have even heard of WTH is a *“microaggression” until very, very recently. That most of humanity indeed don’t pay attention to, and have not, do not and will not learn, things that are not necessary for getting through the day, should not amaze anyone.
Should have changed their name to Lady Reconstruction.
Also good thing Soup Plantation already went out of business for COVID or else there would be a very expensive rebranding in their future.
Bijou Drains, nobody but you needs to hear about you having unclean thoughts about anyone, especially not about someone you regard as a “girl”.
Until recently I never really recognized the racist connotation; I mean, I knew the word meant pre-[Civil] War, but I always considered it a neutral term referring to a specific era, like Gilded Age or Colonial. But I’m aware that’s a product of my white northern upbringing. As a kid I never gave a second thought to the Confederate flag either - I mean those Duke boys were good guys and it was right there on their car! So I understand it taking a while to see these things through the eyes of the people who suffered under it.
Have you ever heard the term “joke?” That’s something I noticed about many liberals (and I am liberal myself) they can’t seem to take a joke. There was a skit on SNL way back called “Make Joan Baez laugh” that explains that idea. I tried to find that skit online but no luck so far.
Lady A will always hold a special place in my heart for that time I somehow downloaded ‘Leave You Now’ as an additional song in Rock Band, and played my first listening of this song at Expert level (on the guitar)… and got 100% of notes played.
For it to be a “joke”, it should be funny.
It was a joke in the sense that people should know I was not really thinking about her at all.
What in the world would make people think that?
Is the word “antebellum” itself now somehow racist? Literally, it just means “before the war” and in the U.S. will nearly always mean “before the American Civil War” specifically (and certainly so for a country music group from Nashville). But I don’t know that “antebellum” necessarily indicates approval of the political, economic, and social institutions of the pre-Civil War South–I can’t see why references to “antebellum architecture” or “dueling and the culture of ‘honor’ in the antebellum South” or “antebellum slave patrols” would indicate any approval of or identification with that time and place. After all, you can also say “The antebellum South was a racist and oppressive society, and it’s a darned good thing the Union won The War!”
Naming your band “Lady Antebellum”, of course, does rather imply such approval of, or at least identification with, the pre-Civil War South; but I don’t see why the word itself would need to be generally purged from our vocabulary. I would say it really depends on the context.
There’s also the issue of the blues singer Lady A not quite liking the name change.
Lady Reconstruction & the Carpetbaggers.
I don’t thinking anyone is saying “you can’t say that word.” But use of the word in a positive connotation is certainly problematic.
I’m not sure you have a good grasp of who their target audience is. They are not “wife took my dog and my truck” country. They are pop music top 40 crossover barely country. To me their biggest song doesn’t even sound at all like country. Their target audience is anyone who likes pop music.
I would guess that the percentage of the general population that either have no idea what the word means or think it’s “something about the south” is extremely high.
I can’t say for sure what the band knows or what associations they make when they hear the word- but I’m about 20 years older than them, and although I knew the word had something to do with the pre-Civil War south, I no more associated it with slavery than I associate “pre-war apartment” with concentration camps. Especially since I typically see “antebellum” used to refer to an architectural style.
It’s not OK to say ‘black’ now?