There ain't nothing sweet about the history of the Southern Bale. The idealized image you see today has about as much to do with the South's real history as Florida, Georgia line has to do with real country music. The modern image of the Southern Bale was actually created by the Southern gentleman as a way of coping with losing the Civil War. See, after Dixie tasted defeat, the South had an opportunity to confront its history of oppression. To soberly assess their past wrongdoings, apologize for those sins and commit to a path toward equality and justice for all. All of which they did not do, they just started making s**t up to make themselves look better. Just like Southern historians tried to convince America that slavery was like a trip to Sandal South Carolina, the myth of the Southern Bale played a crucial role in trying to justify the segregation and racial violence that followed emancipation. I kind of think that this is like arguably worse than Holocaust even because with Holocaust in all of their acknowledging, oh yeah, Holocaust, that would be a terrible thing, which is why we never did that, right? That's their lie. But with the South and slavery, it's like, oh, slavery absolutely happened. It just wasn't that bad. Because they don't have weddings at Auschwitz, but they should do through weddings and plantations in Charleston. So all the time, actually when I was engaged, somebody even made that suggestion to me, they were like, you should totally get married on a plantation. I went, oh, have we not seen my face? No. See, the Bale was a physical incarnation of the sophistication and gentility of the old South. Perfect hair, flawless manners, and hoop dresses so big you can hide centuries of human rights abuses under. And precious flower that she was, the Southern Bale's purity had to be protected from the threat supposedly posed by newly freed slave. What we begin to see in the reconstruction era is the role of the Bale becoming a cover story for the rise of the clan and for racial violence. This dynamic was presented in birth of a nation, a three hour plus revenge fantasy released in 1915 that would make John Wick blush. The film portrays white women in the South as fragile and virtuous, as needing to be protected both from African American men, former slaves, and from Northern carpet bagers who come down to the South. So the film really helped give great life to the myth of the Southern Bale and create a notion that Southern women needed to be protected. And that ties up with the myth of the black male rapist, which is still used in the South. There's a kind of scare tactic. Now I want to clarify something, even if this image of the Southern Bale as the Gentile, pristine symbol of Southern beauty were true, the violence had attempted to justify would still be wrong. But here's the thing, that image was bullsh**. Very few white women would have led the kind of grand life portrayed and felt like on the end. Most were human farmers, but the myth of the Southern Lady helped serve a kind of compensation because it made whiteness better than blackness. Not exactly the stuff of Pinterest maves. You know, the Southern Bale is a married, white woman with a status, and you know, as a black woman in the South, I am not either of those things. I am not a married lady. I'm not a white lady and I don't have any status. So why does the myth of the Southern Bale persist today? Well, because don't nobody know this sh**. In the South, there's a certain amount of the Southern brainwashing that goes on. Also, people are receptive to the idea that they were not the bad guys. Do you know what I mean? Well, because Southern Bale sounded way better than supportive slavery b*****. Right, who wants to be call assistance? Leave master. Nobody wants that title. The image of the Southern Bale has been fully packaged in salt, and the history has been left behind. Just listen to the admiration and the voices of the cast of Bravo's Southern Charm is they give their definition of a Southern Bale. A Southern Bale is always quawked and perfect looking. Being a Southern Bale is just all about manners. A true Southern woman can charm the do right off a honeysuckle. So do I blame folks for continuing to uphold the Southern Bale archetype today? Not really. I mean, being from the South myself, I get that we have to be really selected about honoring our history if we want to be able to sleep at night. It's like rummaging through a scrapyard to find a functional carburetor amid the husk of rotting pickup trucks. So if you want to post a picture of yourself sip and admit Julep on the front porch with the hashtag Southern Bale, that's fine. I definitely don't want no smoke from Charleston's answer to snooki. But we shouldn't put the issue to bed either. Primarily because the psychology that fueled the creation of the Southern Bale is still active today. In fact, when a white terrorist walked into his church in South Carolina and began gunning down parishioners, survivors say he explicitly mentioned black men raping white women as the motivation for his racist killing spree. So even if we don't stop calling our daughter's Southern Bales, we might want to stop treating them like one. And let's raise our mint Julep's to the idea that Southern women are our equals. Sepertami Wa Net. She's way better