- The Washington Times - Wednesday, June 17, 2020

The Dixie Chicks have been put on notice by Variety magazine that their band name is “problematic” and may need to change to appease activists.

Writer Jeremy Helligar, a former editor at People magazine, lambasted Natalie Maines and sisters Martie Erwin Maguire and Emily Strayer on Wednesday for “deafening” silence while Black Lives Matter protests take place across the country.

“’Dixie,’ for the record, is the epitome of white America, a celebration of a Southern tradition that is indivisible from Black slaves and those grand plantations where they were forced to toil for free,” Mr. Helligar wrote.

The Variety piece asserted that “this is a discussion we need to have” despite the band’s history of political sparring with former President George W. Bush.

Indeed the Dixie Chicks were arguably one of the first victims of “cancel culture,” albeit of a conservative variety. The popular group’s records were pulled from nearly every country-music station when, during the run-up to the Iraq War, Ms. Maines said from stage that the group was ashamed that Mr. Bush is from Texas. They then quickly became left-wing cultural heroes.

But, the Variety piece argued, the Dixie Chicks “were performing under a moniker that, in some ways, represents up-with-whiteness more flagrantly than Bush.”

“When white people say they want to hang on to their cultural artifacts, regardless of how they might make minorities feel, it’s the most passive-aggressive expression of white supremacy,” Mr. Helligar claimed. “They are basically saying their history and heritage is worth more than the history and heritage of Black people. Who cares if the Confederacy and words like ’Dixie’ conjure memories of a time when Blacks were in chains? Apparently white Southerners matter more. In this regard, country music has been problematic for decades.”

The column comes in the wake of another country band, Lady Antebellum, changing its name, in that case because “Antebellum” is a term used to refer to the pre-Civil War South.

But the group changed its name to Lady A without realizing that a black singer named Anita White already uses that name, prompting a round of racism-related charges.

“With the country in the middle of a racial inferno and the release of ’Gaslighter’ [the Chicks’ new album] a month off, the Dixie Chicks’ name could end up fanning even more flames than the title of their comeback album,” Mr. Helligar concluded.

• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.

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