To contact this jazz band and tell them to stop using this word?

[FauxWhiteOrchid]

There’s a local jazz event taking place soon and the bio describes the band as “Dixieland”. I remember the Dixie Chicks apologising and changing their name.

The word derives from the American South and is also used in a Confederate song. Here’s the full Wikipedia page for “Dixie”. Basically, its usage is racist.

I was surprised to see the word at all but also not surprised as I live in a very white Reform/Tory voting area.

AIBU to contact the band and ask them to change their description? Or leave them alone? I know what the reaction will be if I do contact them: just music blah blah been a traditional word for this style of jazz blah blah world gone mad woke blah joy thief etc. But I see no reason to use this word in this day and age.

WWYD?

Because we're all so bored with the constant race-baiting and purity spirals.

It's been more or less established that the song came from one of the surveyors names, Jeremiah Dixon. There was documentation of the term being used at least twenty years before the Minstral song. Dixie Jazz was self identification. So I'm on the fence.

Millions of Americans have no problem with the word Dixie. It's odd that some woman in the U.K. does.

Farm Aid

%3D

another vote to ban oranges, think of the Orange Free State!

This basically...

Does the orange ban extend to tangerines, satsumas, mandarins, as their names could be problematic?

OP I think your mind might explode if you went to a country music concert and saw black people dancing with confederate flags (something I have seen a few times).

I’d say you’re looking to find offence where there’s none to be had.

But it's not called "Dixie Jazz", it's called "Dixieland Jazz".

You're trying so terribly hard to be offended about it, you're coming across as totally deranged...

I think with some things you have to distinguish between whether offence is intended or not. It’s not the actual meaning of the word ‘Dixieland’ but how it is interpreted and you’re taking offence where none is meant. This type of jazz was developed by black artists. Why would you think they would be offended by a white jazz band using the name as originally intended. I think there’s enough racism going on without going looking for things to fit your interpretation of it.

This. Good post.

This.

Millions of Americans also have no problem with Donald Trump as their president. Doesn't mean we have to agree.

My parents were into this kind of jazz in the 1950s. I think they labelled it as 'trad' jazz.

Nope. I associate it with the big bands of the 1930s and 40s. I associate it with the talents of people like Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday.

Exactly - how would a band playing Dixieland jazz be unaware of this controversy?! They don’t live under a rock.

All of you who are spitting venom at OP for objecting to a word which she feels has racist connotations - do you feel this about all language?

Is it, in your eyes, ever appropriate to say a word should not be used because it is racist?

Or is absolutely anything fine, however offensive, because we shouldn't "police language"?

(In my opinion, words are the most powerful thing in all the world, and the most capable of doing harm. If we fail to accept that, and our responsibility to use them kindly and compassionately, we are truly lost, I think......)

I'm sure the band would immediately do as you tell them, OP. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Why is it your problem?

You're getting all that from people telling her that "Dixieland" is different from Dixie?

Wow...

It’s a matter of interpretation. There’s enough racist language to police without wading in on something that isn’t intended to be offensive, but descriptive of a certain established genre of music. Offence, in this case, is in the eye of the beholder. If you look hard enough for something to be offended by, you’ll usually find it.

My sister's best friend (in the US) is called Dixie. No one thinks anything of it. She's not from the south or any connection to it.

Case in point - “fag” in Britain 150 years ago, “fag” in Britain now, and “fag” in the US.

It doesn’t mean we all have to agree. I don’t find anything offensive about the band labelling themselves Dixieland as it’s descriptive of a genre of jazz. I find the fact that the OP finds it offensive enough to warrant ‘telling’ the band to change the description bizarre and OTT, but she’s entitled to her opinion I suppose.