BLAKE LIVELY SURRENDERS TO GAWKER, AGREES TO DELETE HER LIFESTYLE AND FASHION SITE:

While glossing over the horrific aspects of the antebellum south (like slavery and the Civil War) isn’t the most intellectually honest thing in the world, keep in mind that the purpose of her site was to sell clothes and feature recipes, not to bring back the slave trade. Future generations aren’t dependent upon an actress’s lifestyle site to preserve a perfect picture of history. We can let Lively praise genteel femininity if she wants to without depicting her as pariah for failing to sufficiently decry slavery more than 150 years after its prohibition.

Lively isn’t the only target of this kind of hate. It seems that modern culture is terrified of the Southern belle. In March, the University of Georgia banned hoop skirts from all campus events after it had already banned Confederate uniforms. Ironically though, hoop skirts aren’t a symbol of white oppression or slaveowner sensibilities, rather they were a great equalizer of the time. As Denise McAllister explained:

The hoop skirt was worn by all social classes and all racial groups. That’s right… The hoop skirt is a symbol of inclusion, not exclusion! […] The white Southern woman “with her attire, manners, and demeanor” … has an identity that is beyond racism. It is an identity rooted in faith, family, individualism, quiet determination, social struggle, and freedom.

As McAllister writes, there’s nothing wrong with finding the good in the Southern belle.

Wow, just wait ‘til Gawker discovers the one-man oppressive European colonialist hegemony that is Kenny G: