I try to keep intemperate rants off the menu, but the [Dixie] Chicks really lit me up a while ago. Their announcement in the wake of George Floyd’s death that they wanted to “meet the moment” by dropping “Dixie” from their name (leaving the some-would-say-problematic-in-itself “Chicks”) is a cynical, market-driven attempt at rebranding, which everybody — the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, The New Yorker et al — have fallen all over themselves to help promote. In fact, the trio is trying to ride George Floyd out of the career wilderness by throwing “Dixie” under the bus, the obvious implication being that “Dixie,” the word itself, is racist. To which my response as a Southerner is eat me.
Song of the Day: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “Rock Me”
