# So....will playing "Dixie" be deemed racist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 17, 2017, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921 "2017-08-17T23:38:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/1 "2017-08-17T23:38:48Z")
Simple…mundane question. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/2 "2017-08-17T23:44:52Z")
I already kinda feel it is. Even though we had this absolutely gorgeous arrangement in choir. Fortunately, preserving actual art seems to be better accepted. But just singing the little ditty? Already has racist connotations. I mean: “I wish I was in the land of cotton”? It’s glorifying slavery in the very first line. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/3 "2017-08-17T23:46:42Z")
Looks like [it](https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/ole-miss-football/ole-miss-marching-band-removes-dixie-from-game-day-routine/)already [is](https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-song-Dixie-considered-racist-Why-has-it-been-banned-from-playing-Why-is-it-hated). ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/4 "2017-08-17T23:54:53Z")
When was it written? Alabama has a really good song called ‘‘High Cotton’’ that is clearly not about slavery. So, no, referencing cotton does not mean referencing slavery. It’s a southern reference to your homeland, where cotton grows. The lines that I know off the top of my head that might be problematic are _In Dixie-Land I’ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie_ which sounds like it has Civil War connotations. Yes, some people will call it racist. Some people will call everything racist. Are they correct in this case? I don’t know and I can’t bring myself to care. It all seems diversionary (not you, OP, but the public dialog in general.) I think it’s making it look like liberals don’t have any real grievances so we just want to pick apart past evidence of racism. It’s right here, today, staring us in the face. Let’s deal with what’s in front of us. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/5 "2017-08-17T23:58:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Looks like [it](https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/ole-miss-football/ole-miss-marching-band-removes-dixie-from-game-day-routine/)already [is](https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-song-Dixie-considered-racist-Why-has-it-been-banned-from-playing-Why-is-it-hated). So it is!! Lets get ahead of the curve then. I predict certain right wing groups will start playing it just to aggravate other groups. Unless THAT has already happened too. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/6 "2017-08-18T00:02:23Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > So it is!! > > Lets get ahead of the curve then. I predict certain right wing groups will start playing it just to aggravate other groups. Unless THAT has already happened too. We seem to have slipped so low in public discourse that I could actually see that starting riots. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/7 "2017-08-18T00:12:02Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > When was it written? [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_(song)) gives 1861. Tom Lehrer-_[I Wanna Go Back To Dixie.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAwhC_btAUU)_ ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/8 "2017-08-18T00:24:44Z")
It came out of blackface minelstry? Yeah, that’s really fucking racist. Too bad. It’s catchy, and the words themselves seem kind of innocuous. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/9 "2017-08-18T00:39:16Z")
Well, you ain’t just whistling Dixie. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/10 "2017-08-18T00:42:08Z")
Someone in the YouTube thread for ‘‘High Cotton’’ who has a Confederate flag as their icon said, ‘‘I want to go back to the South of the 1950’s.’’ I’m sure you do. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/11 "2017-08-18T00:57:48Z")
“Dixie” has always been problematic. Even Rose Wilder Lane (Libertarian embroiderer of American legend of the frontier past) mentions how her parents Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder remained seated with their hand clamped down rigidly refusing to recognize “Dixie” as having a part in a 4th of July Celebration. That would have been in the 1890s in Missouri. How about songs with Dixie in the title? Despite my true patriot love (Canadian style) for Robbie Robertson, I am completely over “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. I was listening to “Music from Big Pink” the other night and the opening bars of the song just made me do a big “Nope!” and go to the next song. I don’t really care that it isn’t racist per se, it glorifies the ideals of Lost Cause Confederacy. No thanks. And I’m a Canadian, and all my ancestors were either in Canada (British North America/ Upper Canada/ Canada East) well before the US Civil war, (including my skeletons, the United Empire Loyalist ancestors) or immigrated later as cheap white Finnish labour in the early 20th century. Not my circus, not my monkeys, but I don’t need to play that song again. ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/12 "2017-08-18T01:14:38Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > Despite my true patriot love (Canadian style) for Robbie Robertson, I am completely over “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. I was listening to “Music from Big Pink” the other night and the opening bars of the song just made me do a big “Nope!” and go to the next song. I don’t really care that it isn’t racist per se, it glorifies the ideals of Lost Cause Confederacy. I’ve always been amused that “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is seemingly a freedom folk anthem. Or looked on that way somehow. Joan Baez, the great wailer of the downtrodden and oppressed, sings it beautifully. It’s the night slavery was, almost hate to say this right now, irrevocably destroyed. Why is that a sad thing? Anyway, racist or not, it’s an American song, not subject to any official censure. And the Federal troops loved it as much as the other guys. And on the night the war was officially over, the military band serenaded Mr. Lincoln on the White House grounds with strains of “Dixie”. And “Marching Through Georgia”, I’m guessing. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/13 "2017-08-18T01:33:07Z")
“Way down south in the land of cotton Your feet stink and mine are rotten…” …at least, that’s how we used to sing it in grade school, down in old Virginny… ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/14 "2017-08-18T01:42:19Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > “Dixie” has always been problematic. Even Rose Wilder Lane (Libertarian embroiderer of American legend of the frontier past) mentions how her parents Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder remained seated with their hand clamped down rigidly refusing to recognize “Dixie” as having a part in a 4th of July Celebration. That would have been in the 1890s in Missouri. > > How about songs with Dixie in the title? > > Despite my true patriot love (Canadian style) for Robbie Robertson, I am completely over “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. I was listening to “Music from Big Pink” the other night and the opening bars of the song just made me do a big “Nope!” and go to the next song. I don’t really care that it isn’t racist per se, it glorifies the ideals of Lost Cause Confederacy. > > No thanks. > > And I’m a Canadian, and all my ancestors were either in Canada (British North America/ Upper Canada/ Canada East) well before the US Civil war, (including my skeletons, the United Empire Loyalist ancestors) or immigrated later as cheap white Finnish labour in the early 20th century. Not my circus, not my monkeys, but I don’t need to play that song again. Since you bring up Lost Cause…I want to say this close-fisted approach we’ve seen recently of “Eff you traitors, you lost. Deal with it cause its ALL coming down!” is anti-ethical to what Lincoln wanted isn’t it? I don’t want to devolve into just another CW thread so let me say, I ask about equating Lost Cause/Nostalgia/my ancestors weren’t even slave owners they just tried to protect our land…with SLAVERY!!!..because it seems to me that the next step is vandalizing and removing confederate gravestones. And that would be a bad bad bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/15 "2017-08-18T01:57:53Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > It came out of blackface minelstry? Yeah, that’s really fucking racist. > > Too bad. It’s catchy, and the words themselves seem kind of innocuous. So does, “My Old Kentucky Home”, and yet, the [classical presentation is racist as fuck](https://youtu.be/voBcDtXIMvA). The Deep South has basically been allowed to get along with celebrating the United States Civil War as some kind of moral rebellion against the tyranny of the federal government, glossing over the fact that it was fought in support of human slavery, an institution that the United States was one of the last developed nations to support long after Europe prohibited slave trade. It is not uncommon to encounter attitudes and statements in the South marginalizing the horror and inhumanity of slavery, claiming that the Civil War is “not over”, and generally denying that slavery was even an issue. It’s basically how Germany and Austria would have been without the post-war efforts for denazification. Fuck “Dixie Pride” and the Confederate “Southern Cross” battle flag that has been adopted as a symbol of oppression, adopted by bigots as a sigil to oppose desegregation and civil rights in the 1950s. This isn’t pride in regional affiliation; it is adoration of a core philosophy of racism. “Dixie” belongs with “Horst Wessel Lied” in the ashheap of shameful shit people have done to one another, and Confederate statues, flags, and other memorabilia decorating public buildings belong in a museum where the entire history of the CSA and slavery under the pre-Civil War United States can be clearly illustrated. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/16 "2017-08-18T02:08:56Z")
“Dixie” was played at both the 1861 inauguaration of Lincoln and of CSA President Davis. Not that it means anything. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/17 "2017-08-18T02:12:54Z")
Lincoln liked it. > [@](#): > > Lincoln was not particularly musical, but when a band serenaded him in the White House at the end of the Civil War, he asked the musicians to play “Dixie” saying, “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it…I now request the band to favor me with its performance.” (April 10, 1865) [https://www.lincolncollection.org/discover/ask-an-expert/qa-archive/was-“dixie”-really-lincoln’s-favorite-song/](https://www.lincolncollection.org/discover/ask-an-expert/qa-archive/was-%E2%80%9Cdixie%E2%80%9D-really-lincoln%E2%80%99s-favorite-song/) ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/18 "2017-08-18T02:53:18Z")
The tune by itself might not be racist, but singing about “de land ob cotton” is pretty racist. On a related note, the song “Golden Slippers” was used as the tune for the cereal Golden Grahams. I didn’t think anything of it until I was at a friend’s house and they had a piano book with sheet music and lyrics for various tunes. \*Oh, dem golden slippers! Oh, dem golden slippers! Golden slippers I’m gwine to wear, bekase dey look so neat; Oh, dem golden slippers! Oh, dem golden slippers! Golden slippers Ise gwine to wear, to walk de golden street. \* Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/19 "2017-08-18T04:16:21Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Lets get ahead of the curve then. I predict certain right wing groups will start playing it just to aggravate other groups. Unless THAT has already happened too. They were just individual people and not groups, but Jesse Helms [did this 24 years ago](http://articles.latimes.com/1993-08-06/news/mn-20952_1_carol-moseley-braun): > [@](#): > > Moseley-Braun, a Democrat from Illinois, told the story at the National Urban League annual dinner Wednesday night, about two weeks after another tangle with Helms in which she defeated his move to renew a patent on the Confederate flag insignia. > > The incident happened Tuesday, she said. When Helms stepped into the elevator, "he saw me standing there, and he started to sing, 'I wish I was in the land of cotton . . . ’ And he looked at Sen. Hatch and said, ‘I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing ‘Dixie’ until she cries.’ ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921/20 "2017-08-18T04:23:23Z")
Wow. What an ass. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-will-playing-dixie-be-deemed-racist/793921.md?page=2)