Washington Post Editorial Calls for Ban on Southern Belles

Whoever passes down the marching orders to the myrmidons of political correctness has decreed that for liberal utopia to be imposed, the South most be completely eradicated as a cultural and historical entity. Not just the rebel flag. Not just the word Dixie. Everything that reminds people of the South must be forced down the memory hole so that no one will remember it ever existed — even Southern belles. From another appalling op-ed in the ever more execrable Washington Post:

When administrators at the University of Georgia declared a ban on hoop skirts in the spring, I could only think, what took you so long?

But in that sense UGA was really no different from other Southern schools. Long after many universities had officially done away with a variety of Old South symbols, the feminine figure most clearly identified with Dixie — the Southern belle — continued to enjoy free rein. College administrators who had long since banned the Confederate battle flag, nixed the singing of “Dixie” and given plantation-owner mascots the boot were still saying yes to the dress.

What do these totalitarians have against Southern belles?

The Southern belle performances routinely staged on campuses across the South constitute choreography of exclusion. And most do not even require a hoop skirt. In campus productions — sorority rush, beauty revues and pageants, sporting traditions — young white women serve as signs of nostalgia for a bygone, segregated South and all its attendant privileges.

They want to ban nostalgia. They want to exclude it for being “exclusive.”

Just think about mainline sorority rush as practiced on most Southern college campuses: from the demure dress code and insider skit scripts to the clubby decor and Old South embellishments to the carefully rehearsed patter about home towns and family trees, the choreography of sorority rush — typically performed large and loud against a backdrop of faux plantation architecture— practically screams to minority applicants, “NOT YOU!”

The ruling class isn’t likely to ban African heritage celebrations on the grounds that they exclude people who aren’t African. But white people are not allowed to have heritage, are not allowed to have history, are not allowed to have memories, are not allowed to have identities. Our liberal overlords are starting with the South, but eventually anything that cannot be infused with “diversity” will be forbidden.

Leftists’ preferred means of getting their way is coercion:

If UGA and other Southern schools really want to lead, they will not only ban the hoop; they will also go after the belle.

The term for what we see taking place is “cultural genocide.”

Southern-Belle-dresses
What kind of fiends would impose a world without Southern belles?

On a tip from Cristina dO. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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