0:04

There are No Girls on the Internet. As a production of I Heart

0:06

Radio and Unbossed Creative, I'm

0:12

Bridget Todd, and this is there are no girls on the

0:14

Internet. As

0:17

a woman of a certain age, I've gotten to my fair

0:19

share of weddings over the years. I'm

0:22

also getting married myself, or at

0:24

least I was until COVID and now who

0:26

even knows. But that means

0:28

I have seen no fewer than a dozen wedding

0:30

websites listing outdated wedding

0:32

cliches to avoid things like

0:35

serving drinks in Mason jars, which I'm sorry

0:37

to say, I still think it's kind of charming, A

0:39

sort of a five thousand married adults

0:41

by the Wedding Inbox found that certain

0:43

old fashioned wedding traditions are now falling

0:46

out of favor in our evolving world. Take

0:48

the expectation that a bride's dad will always

0:50

pick up the tab. Not only is

0:52

this totally heteronormative, but

0:54

it's also a norm that a lot of people do not stick

0:57

to anymore. Today, more than

0:59

four out of ten couples share the cost of weddings

1:01

between both families, and take throwing

1:04

rice at the happy couple after the ceremony.

1:06

Even though Snopes found the whole birds, eat

1:09

rice and die thing as a myth, rice

1:11

can be annoying to clean up. So now many

1:13

couples have turned alternatives like blowing bubbles.

1:16

So, just like anything else, wedding traditions

1:18

evolved over the years, which

1:21

brings me to one wedding element

1:23

that definitely needs to be left in the past,

1:26

and that is the plantation wedding. I

1:29

know what you might be thinking, who would actually

1:31

want to have a wedding on a plantation a

1:33

side of brutalization and torture of black

1:35

enslaved people. But I'm from

1:37

the South and I can tell you it happens.

1:40

A list celebrities, Blake Lively and Ryan

1:43

Reynolds had their two thousand and twelve wedding

1:45

at Boone Plantation in South Carolina, the

1:47

filming location for the film The Notebook. It

1:50

was also the site where, according to one record,

1:52

eight five enslaved black people were brutalized

1:55

while being forced to harvest cotton, pecans

1:57

and producing brick. Here's an

1:59

upbeat tour video from the website Southern

2:01

Weekend. It also has

2:04

breathtaking grounds, which are a popular

2:06

wedding venue. And it features a truly

2:08

spectacular home built in the nineteen

2:10

thirties. I mean they could have at least put the music

2:12

in a minor key right now.

2:14

At the time, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds

2:17

their wedding got so much positive

2:19

press for being romantic and beautiful.

2:22

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynold's married where the

2:24

notebook was filmed. Us Magazine gushed.

2:26

People Magazine's headline added at

2:28

the couple tied the knot in a super romantic

2:31

location, but now the couple

2:33

regrets it. They've since had another

2:35

ceremony and donated money to the a CP.

2:38

It's impossible to reconcile. What

2:41

we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest.

2:44

What we saw after was a place built on devastating

2:46

tragedy. Ryan Minnold said in an interview,

2:49

it's no surprise the couple say they fell in

2:51

love with the venue on Pinterest. For

2:53

most people, the first step in planning a wedding

2:56

is searching websites like Pinterest, Zola, and

2:58

Wedding Wire, and up until last year, these

3:00

sites allowed plantations to be advertised on

3:03

their platforms as charming in nostalgic

3:05

landmarks of a genteel, bygone era instead

3:07

of somber reminders of the brutality of

3:10

slavery. That is, until the civil

3:12

rights organization Color of Change stepped in.

3:14

They worked with popular wedding platforms

3:16

like Pinterest, The Not and Wedding

3:18

Wire to develop new guidelines to

3:21

stop the promotion of wedding content that romanticizes

3:23

former slave plantations. And this

3:25

fits squarely within Color of Changes understanding

3:28

that part of making change involves sparking

3:30

cultural shifts in people's minds, in this

3:32

case, getting them to stop thinking about

3:34

slavery from a white centered lens. It's

3:37

worked that Jade to spend her entire young adult

3:39

life getting ready for My name

3:41

is Jade Magnus Ogenaki. I'm the senior

3:44

director of the Media, Culture and Economic

3:46

Justice team at Color of Change. So

3:48

how does one get a job that involves getting wedding

3:50

websites to rethink plantations? First?

3:53

I went to Howard University UM,

3:55

which is, you know, sort of

3:57

like hogbed for discussions

3:59

around political activism and

4:02

black identity. I went to Howard

4:05

UM, and you know, I was at Howard

4:07

during what I call like the Black youth movement

4:09

of the tent. You know, this is when Trayvon

4:11

Martin was killed. It was such a big turning point

4:13

for so many of us UM.

4:16

And this is when you have organizations like I

4:18

P one hundred and Dream Defenders UM

4:22

UH coming to the forefront UM.

4:24

And so I was a founding member of BYP one

4:27

hundred UM. I think, I don't know. I

4:29

was a junior in college, or maybe

4:31

the summer between my junior and senior year

4:34

UM. And immediately after UM,

4:36

I wanted to get an organizing job. And you

4:38

know, quite a few people that I respected

4:41

UM had worked in the labor movement UM.

4:44

And so I went to go work in labor organizing

4:46

low wage workers for two years UM,

4:49

which was you know, the best sort

4:51

of education that you can get UM

4:54

and the strongest organizing training

4:57

possible UM. And you know, I was getting

4:59

married at the end of those two years.

5:01

And with labor you're required to do such a lot of

5:04

travel UM. And so I

5:06

was looking for a job that didn't require as much travel

5:09

UM and had a friend who worked at Color

5:11

of Change. It happened to be UM

5:14

sort of interviewing at the same time I was looking

5:16

for a job, and it fell into place.

5:18

UM. I started Entry Local a Color of Change

5:20

four years ago, UM as a campaign

5:22

manager, and I've been here

5:25

ever since. So you mentioned getting married

5:27

earlier. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to

5:29

you. I happen to know from social media

5:31

that you had a big, beautiful wedding

5:33

not that long ago. Congratulations. Uh

5:35

did you use wedding planning websites

5:37

like Zola and Pinterest And what was that experience

5:40

like for you planning your wedding. I

5:43

got engaged and married actually

5:45

quite young for the

5:48

current modern era that we're in now, UM,

5:50

And so yeah, I was totally overwhelmed. You

5:52

know, first of all, I was quite

5:55

you know, I didn't have a lot of money when I was planning my wedding,

5:57

and so you know, you're looking at all of these wedding

5:59

websites, buying all the magazines,

6:02

listening to all the podcast you know

6:04

about how to plan a wedding. UM.

6:07

And you know, actually, during this

6:09

sort of wedding planning was the

6:11

first time I'd ever heard of a plantation wedding. UM.

6:14

I'm from Los Angeles. We don't

6:17

have relics to American slavery in the

6:19

same way that you might have and like the

6:22

South or the East. Um. And

6:24

I went to college in d C, so you

6:26

know, they're not a ton of plantations in d C,

6:28

although there are some and you know the sort of broader

6:31

DMB area. Um. Yeah,

6:33

that was sort of the first time I had ever kind of seen

6:35

the plantation weddings thing, and I thought it was just,

6:38

you know, above all super duper weird.

6:40

Um. But I know now that it's sort of like a it's

6:43

a cultural touch dome for a lot of people in the

6:45

South. So yeah,

6:48

I grew up in the South. I'm from Virginia and

6:50

I've never attended a wedding on a plantation,

6:53

but I definitely bedn't been invited to them. Um.

6:55

I do think there's this sort of unstated

6:58

norm that, like you, if you're from the health what

7:01

like, it's a thing that happens. I think

7:03

that people don't really question

7:05

it that much. It's just kind of becomes part

7:07

of Southern culture

7:09

and it becomes one of those things that people don't kind

7:12

of making themselves ask any kind

7:14

of critical questions about it, be critical of because

7:16

it's just part of being raised

7:18

in the South. It shouldn't be terribly

7:20

surprising that when some people think of plantations,

7:23

they think of romantic tree line paths, elegant

7:25

porches, and hey, this would be a great

7:27

place for a wedding. We've

7:29

removed these sites so far from their

7:31

actual histories and the legacies of the enslaved

7:34

people who lived and died there, and

7:36

a lot of people in the South grow up not really

7:38

thinking critically about the legacy of slavery

7:40

and the way it's built into the landscape in the

7:42

South. Visiting my parents in Virginia

7:45

involves a drive down a highway still named

7:47

after Jefferson Davis, the former president

7:49

of the Confederacy, and to get to my high

7:51

school, I drove down Monument Avenue every

7:53

single day, line with statutes of Confederate

7:56

soldiers like Roberty Lee and Stonewall Jackson,

7:58

and I never even really have to think about it. Until

8:00

I was an adult, I learned about a sanitized,

8:03

friendly version of slavery and the Civil War.

8:05

And I'm not kidding. Our elementary

8:07

school even had Civil War Day every year

8:10

for all the kids would either dress out as Confederate

8:12

or Union soldiers and recreate

8:14

a march on the schoolyard. Now

8:17

j grew up across the country in California,

8:19

and she grew up learning about the missions outpost

8:22

built by Spain and California in the late seventeen

8:24

hundreds where Indigenous people were forcibly

8:27

relocated from their traditional homes in

8:29

the name of colonialism and Christianity.

8:32

In California, we have like missions which

8:34

who are essentially like torture sites for Native

8:36

American in genious people. Right, And like in

8:39

school you go and visit the missions in third grade

8:42

in Los Angeles Unified School District? Do

8:44

you build a mission? Right? So there are all of these

8:46

sorts of ways that um,

8:49

human atrocities, UM like

8:51

slavery are sort of built into our

8:53

culture, built into our psyche, and you

8:55

know they're so um normalized

8:57

that it's you know, you don't think about it all

9:00

because just something you've grown up with. Yeah,

9:03

it's it's really really interesting. So

9:05

tell me more about how the idea to get wedding websites

9:07

to stop romance assassin plantations became

9:09

a reality. Yeah. So I

9:13

had just come back I had a baby in

9:15

what years at nineteen and so just

9:18

come back from maternity leave, um,

9:21

and was talking to some colleagues. Uh,

9:24

one of our researchers, Issha Ramana

9:26

John UM. You know, I was talking

9:28

about at shared an article I think about plantation

9:30

weddings UM, and so she

9:33

was, you know, she was like, you know what if

9:35

we targeted you know, obviously

9:37

this is something that's not right. You know what if

9:39

we targeted UM wedding planners

9:42

UM. And so you know, thinking

9:45

about like sort of the strategy

9:48

or you know, for like how we can really

9:50

affect change. Right, It's like we

9:53

could target wedding planners UM.

9:55

But there's not necessarily like a wedding planners association,

9:58

you know, that's like mandatory for

10:00

wedding parters to you know, be

10:03

a part of in order to plan weddings. From

10:05

my own experience planning a wedding, I knew

10:07

that sort of like the big engines in

10:09

wedding wedding planning UM,

10:12

where these like UM platforms, a

10:14

lot of them started as magazines,

10:17

print publications and then transitioned

10:19

to UM to online

10:22

digital publications UM.

10:25

And so I sort of I knew already,

10:27

you know, the big ones I knew

10:29

then. I knew Wedding Wire, I knew Zola

10:32

who had you know, begun doing this like

10:34

um uh, quite visible

10:37

publicity campaign on the New York subways at

10:40

the exact same time as this is happening about how

10:42

they're sort of like a non traditional modern wedding

10:44

platform um Martha Stewart's Weddings

10:47

Brides. And so I was like, I

10:49

love the idea around plantation weddings,

10:51

especially because this is something that you

10:53

know, we talked about in black community

10:55

all the time. I'm sure if you search plantation weddings,

10:57

you know on Twitter for the past ten years, there's

11:00

been sort of like cyclical conversations about

11:02

them like how crazy is this? Why is this allowed?

11:04

Etcetera. Um, And so I was

11:07

like, I brought together Easha and I brought together

11:09

our campaign manager at the time, a Monty Brown,

11:11

and was like, let's sit down and let's

11:13

target these wedding website platforms.

11:16

And they are the ones to go after because they're

11:18

the ones, you know, curating this vision

11:21

and this aesthetic around what a wedding

11:23

should be. Implantations are largely

11:25

a really really big part of that aesthetic.

11:27

And you know, the more we sort of went

11:30

into the research, you know, the darker it

11:32

kind of became. Um. So

11:34

yeah, that's sort of how I got started. We you

11:37

know what, we we sent out letters to

11:40

all of the platforms are just named. Um.

11:43

Two of them got back to us, uh,

11:45

the not On Wedding Choir and Pinterest

11:48

and so you know, I think the first meeting

11:50

we had was with Pinterest, with Ifoma Zelma,

11:53

who is an incredible She used to be at

11:55

Pinterest and you know they treated

11:57

her and other black employees really poorly, and

11:59

you know she left quite publicly this

12:01

year, um

12:03

um. And if Fomo, you know, was just such a

12:06

champion of this cause you know, she was like,

12:08

as a black woman, I you

12:10

know, it's not just about my

12:13

job, It's about like what is important for my

12:15

reputation and ethics and this is not

12:17

okay. It's not okay that we pushed

12:19

this sort of plantation aesthetic on the platform.

12:21

And so what they did was they removed

12:24

keywords. Um, you were unable

12:26

to search a list of plantation related

12:29

key words. And then we met with the Knot and Wedding

12:31

Wire and you know that was a longer

12:33

set of conversations. Um

12:36

uh. But you know we also came to sort

12:39

of uh an agreement which

12:41

we developed some guidelines around

12:44

what was able to be put on the website, so you

12:46

know, they agree to no longer feature

12:50

um, you know they'll do like listicles

12:52

or features of weddings. They would no longer

12:54

do original content featuring plantation weddings,

12:56

which I thought was you know, a big deal.

12:59

And the second piece that they did, which I thought was

13:01

really really important,

13:04

was they went they had a team who went through

13:06

the directory and sort of cold

13:08

descriptions. You know, they removed

13:11

words like antebellum, they removed

13:13

towards um that sort

13:15

of played on the history of slavery.

13:17

You know, they're probably the most disturbing

13:20

part of this whole thing is that what

13:23

we found was that, um,

13:25

it's not only that uh, slavery

13:28

was a part of this sort

13:30

of project, right, It's like and

13:32

some of the cabins they would advertise slave

13:36

cabins that had been there since the sevent hundreds,

13:38

And to me, I'm just like, so, why on earth would

13:40

you want to get married, you know, next

13:42

to places where people were beaten and abused

13:44

and tortured and enslaved and sexually

13:47

assaulted. Jade's team

13:49

found that wedding websites used terms like romantic,

13:52

charming and elegant to describe plantations,

13:55

but obviously any romantization

13:57

of plantation life, it's just artifice

14:00

to make it seem more charming and less like

14:02

a torture site, and even weirder,

14:04

like a copy of something that never really existed

14:07

in the first place. Some wedding venues

14:09

in the South were built well after

14:11

slavery ended, but we're designed to look

14:13

like plantations and call themselves plantations

14:16

even though they were never actually working plantations.

14:19

What do you gain from calling your wedding venue

14:22

that never housed enslaved people a plantation?

14:25

And what exactly are you trying to capitalize

14:27

on by using that word to sell

14:29

your venue to prospective couples. BOBBYA.

14:32

Sorrow owned Southern Oaks Plantation in New

14:35

Orleans East. It has never been

14:37

a real plantation, built only in

14:39

the sixties to look like one. The

14:41

lighting, the pillows, the sofas,

14:43

We did all of that to give it a more updated

14:46

look. It just goes to show how deeply

14:49

the marketing around the fantasy of plantations

14:51

and slavery as symbols of nostalgia

14:53

and elegance is intertwined with the American

14:55

South. What we found was there were

14:58

quite a few venue who

15:01

actually had never taken part.

15:03

There had never been you know, enslaved people

15:05

on the grounds. But they were also marketing

15:08

this plantation fantasy, which you know,

15:10

I hadn't realized was such a big part

15:12

of so many American psyche And

15:15

it's this idea that you

15:17

know, in the Antebello himself for the

15:19

Civil War when black people were enslaved,

15:22

this was a great time of gentility

15:24

and grace, right, And so that is the aesthetic

15:26

that these wedding website platforms

15:28

were playing on, and that you know, so many people

15:31

plan um weddings around.

15:33

For me, when I hear about you know, pre

15:36

Civil War, I think of pain, I

15:38

think of great I think of abuse,

15:40

I think of torture. Um. But for a lot

15:42

of people, that's not what they think of. They think

15:44

of a better time um.

15:47

And so that part and that piece was

15:50

you know, it was quite jarring to realize

15:52

that, you know, a lot of what these plantations were doing

15:54

was they were marketing slavery um

15:56

as sort of a draw for a romantic place

15:58

to get married. Um.

16:01

Immediately after, you know, we had an exclusive

16:04

with buzz Feed that came out around uh

16:06

the NA and wedding Wire and pinterest. You

16:09

know, making these big changes would

16:11

have been so interesting. Was that you know, we sent

16:13

when we initially sent a letter to Zola, for example,

16:15

we had sent a list of examples, UM.

16:18

And so I had just happened

16:21

to be checking up on the website, you know, just

16:23

one evening and went to Zola's website

16:25

and they had pulled all of the mentions of plantations

16:27

from the website, but they hadn't

16:30

replied to us at all. And you know, that was a problem

16:32

for a couple of reasons. The number one thing is

16:35

that we're actually not interested at color

16:37

and a color of change and people sort

16:39

of just like pulling things and you

16:41

know, doing like quick fixes. We want people to make

16:43

commitments and change policies and rules

16:45

moving forward. So yeah, it's great

16:47

that you couldn't search plantation at the time that

16:49

I was on Zola's website. But

16:51

the problem actually is is that you

16:54

know, there's no policy around it moving

16:56

forward. So if someone puts if a

16:58

plantation, then you put something up the next day it could

17:00

be featured. UM. And as

17:02

I said earlier, I had was taking the subway

17:05

to work every day and noticing that Zola had these

17:07

all of these ads about how they were so progressive

17:09

and modern and a you know, a

17:11

wedding platform for a new sort

17:14

of partners, and yet they were totally

17:16

you know, they were totally unwilling to make

17:19

you know, they were unwilling to respond to us um

17:22

and make these sort of policy changes, which is just you

17:24

know, a way that things are. You know, companies are so

17:26

incongruent in marketing and the actual policies

17:28

that they enact. Um. And so when

17:30

the BuzzFeed article came out, so I said,

17:33

yes, we're not taking anything down. You know, we're not making

17:35

any policies. You know, we agree that

17:37

this is you know, we agree that people should be able

17:39

to put up whatever they want. A couple

17:41

hours later, the New York Times in an article around

17:43

it, and then that few hours zola

17:45

Um made a commitment in the New York Times

17:48

article to no longer feature them. So you

17:50

know, that was sort of a full circle moment.

17:52

Brides and Martha Stewart's weddings

17:54

also made these commitments as well, um

17:57

to you know, when the articles came out to no longer

17:59

future plantation weddings content. So that

18:01

was a big deal. You know, it was a really

18:03

meaningful moment. It's interesting to see that

18:05

it took that kind of high profile

18:08

public pressure. That's originally they were sort of

18:10

not responsive, but in the New York Times

18:12

right to that they seem to have changed there

18:14

too pretty quickly. You

18:17

know. It just shows you know, what

18:20

we've seen, I think even since the George Floyd protests,

18:22

is that outward communications

18:24

are one thing. What a corporation puts out to the world

18:26

is one thing, and what they do behind the scenes with their

18:28

own employees with the content that they

18:30

push out is a totally different thing. You

18:32

know, we saw so many corporations, you know. Color of Change

18:35

also has a sort of camp ub called Beyond

18:37

the Statement, which is about how we've seen so

18:39

many corporations say, oh, black lives not all

18:41

right. But you know, when you look at their

18:43

companies, they're paying their low wage workers who

18:45

are disproportionately black, you know, ten

18:47

dollars an hour. It just doesn't add up, you know. And

18:50

so for you know, the plantation, weddings content

18:52

um as well as just beyond the statement stuff. It's

18:55

important that black people

18:57

matter in life um as much

18:59

as they matter in death. You know, it's

19:01

important that um our ancestors

19:05

um the pain and the torture that they went

19:07

through is respected, you know, And that

19:09

was a big piece of this plantation weddings campaign

19:11

is that these are sacred sites.

19:14

These are sites where human atrocities

19:16

took place. Planting more

19:19

trees and you know, pointing

19:21

to the beautiful architecture does not change

19:23

the fact that these are places. There's not

19:25

like slavery just happened there. They

19:27

have put the plantations were built

19:29

to how slavery. You know, it's very

19:32

intentional what was happening. Let's

19:34

take a quick break center

19:43

back wedding websites. Not

19:45

romanticizing plantations may seem

19:47

like a small change, but sometimes

19:49

a small concrete action can lead to a wider,

19:52

more meaningful cultural shift and individual

19:54

people's attitudes. And even if

19:56

you've never really thought about why having a wedding

19:58

on a plantation is a a great idea, platforms

20:01

like Pinterest, not romanticizing plantation weddings

20:04

can create a larger shift and how everyone thinks

20:06

about slavery and the way it shows up in our culture. This

20:09

is not new work for Color of Change. In

20:11

addition to more traditional activism around

20:13

social change, they also work to create

20:15

change using popular culture in

20:17

the wake of protest around police killings. For instance,

20:20

they work to have television shows that glorify

20:22

policing as an entertainment device, like

20:25

Cops and Life p D taken off

20:27

the air. You mentioned some of the other

20:29

work that Color of Change is involved in, and

20:31

I like that. In addition to sort of some

20:34

of the more traditional things that we think of in terms of

20:36

demanding accountability, Color of Change

20:38

also tries to create change through leading

20:41

on these cultural things. So you know,

20:43

like the plantation weddings. I guess why

20:45

is that so important in conjunction

20:48

with some of the more traditional ways that you might think

20:50

of as getting justice. Um, also

20:52

pushing forward these cultural changes

20:55

and getting people to sort of rethink their own

20:57

attitudes around how they understand

20:59

and that you know, deal with black

21:01

black both. Yeah. You

21:04

know, culture

21:06

is a really really big piece of

21:09

of Color of Changes in work. It always has

21:11

been, you know, from us sort of like getting

21:13

Glen Beck, um,

21:15

getting Glenbeck Show advertisers to pull out

21:17

years ago to you know, our work

21:19

this year to get Cops in Live p D off the

21:21

air. Um. The culture work

21:23

is is really important and you

21:26

know, black people, uh,

21:28

we are you know, the culture

21:30

creators in this country, right, Um,

21:33

And I you know, I really view our culture work

21:35

as like not only uplifting and centering

21:37

and claiming black culture, which we do through a

21:39

lot in our like Hollywood work and

21:41

our storytelling work, but it's also

21:43

about supplanting like the white centered

21:45

cultural symbols that really harm

21:48

us. You know. Um,

21:50

I'm sure so many of you know this like plantation

21:52

weddings thing leads into like such a larger

21:54

problem, right, which is the way that slavery

21:57

is taught in schools

21:59

and the ways that people think about it. I mean, we had

22:01

a few years ago, um, a

22:03

textbook company you know, put out a textbook

22:06

that said slavery is was essentially

22:08

like compared to being an intern. Right. And

22:10

so because um, the true stripe

22:13

slavery has been neutralized in so many

22:15

ways. Um. You know, I think

22:17

if people were really new in

22:19

detail the sort of things that happened on plantations

22:22

outside of like you know, maybe

22:24

viewing twelve years a slave, you

22:26

know, we're seeing glory, I think

22:28

they would really think twice

22:31

about revering these sorts of symbols,

22:33

you know. Um. Yeah,

22:37

it's the cultural work is incredibly important

22:39

because UM, culture shapes

22:41

policy. Right. And you know, we see the movement

22:44

of the past ten years, you know, as I said,

22:46

the Black youth movement, UM.

22:48

Um, we see how over

22:51

time, you know, black

22:53

organizers and black groups shifted the

22:55

culture where you know, you're

22:57

and it's it is no longer contraver

23:00

or should say black lives matter, right, you couldn't

23:02

say that though, in it

23:04

was quite a controversial thing to say.

23:07

UM. And so we see that culture like you know,

23:09

prime the environment UM

23:12

for you know, the policies

23:14

and changes that need to happen. UM.

23:16

And you know, culture work is also it's important.

23:19

And you know material, you know, the work that

23:21

affects the material conditions also matters a

23:23

whole lot too. UM. And what I

23:25

love about CC is it's not one of the other.

23:27

We're definitely concerned with both and moving

23:29

campaigns on both on both uh,

23:32

in both areas. Definitely.

23:35

Do you feel that the work that you did getting

23:37

these wedding websites touch touch changes the

23:39

way they talk about slavery was a successful,

23:42

um, a successful example of that kind of

23:44

cultural shift that you're describing. Yeah,

23:46

And you know, I think it's also what's so important

23:49

about having you know, black

23:52

leaders, you know, at a at a powerful

23:54

organization. You know, black organizations

23:56

really matter, UM. And this is

23:58

something that we took up because we knew how

24:01

important it was. We you know, so many of us

24:03

maybe have been invited to a wedding UM

24:06

or you know, or been on

24:08

a plantation tour as a

24:10

child, you know, in school and sort

24:12

of felt deeply uncomfortable with the ways that our ancestors

24:14

were disrespected UM and the pain

24:16

and the torture that they went through was not respected

24:19

UM. And so yeah, I think it was

24:22

an incredibly meaningful moment. Did

24:24

the website who changed their policies around plantations

24:26

faced any kind of criticism or blowback. One

24:29

of the most interesting things, honestly

24:31

that I found was that, you know, there was quite a

24:33

bit you know, I think a lot of people love to play

24:35

the devil's advocate and sort of comments on articles

24:37

and things. But when we were talking to the

24:39

not in Wedding wire UMU

24:42

the following January. This all happened in November.

24:44

So talking to them the following January, I

24:47

asked, have you have you all received any

24:49

like blowback or criticism? They said

24:51

none at all. Right, So this none

24:54

no one has said anything wrong. We haven't had

24:56

our inbolx. You know, no one's anything in our inbox.

24:59

It has been a decision that people like totally

25:01

agree makes sense um.

25:04

And so for me that was such like a validating

25:06

moment um. You know, for a lot of

25:08

corporations, don't you know, they make or don't

25:11

make decisions um

25:13

based on perceived what people

25:15

what will people say? Right, and you

25:17

know, they have this idea in their minds sort

25:20

of the same way that you know, UH,

25:22

candidates for office had this idea in their mind

25:24

of like the standard American right, which

25:26

is you know, an extremely white

25:28

conservative person um, when

25:31

the truth of the matter is that you know,

25:33

people have diversity of thought. The past ten years

25:35

has shifted the way that people think um

25:39

around issues of justice, and in such

25:41

a large way that you know, this was sort

25:43

of a needed next step more than

25:46

you know, an earth shaking you

25:48

know, Brown versus Board of Education decision.

25:51

So I read a lot of angry comments saying that

25:53

you all were trying to have plantations destroyed

25:55

or burned down or closed, and

25:57

there's really no truth in that literal

26:00

only we never said that, you know, like that's

26:02

me was the most shocking thing. I'm like, oh my gosh,

26:05

Like we we literally didn't say

26:07

anything to plantations at all. We're not trying

26:09

to. You know. What we have found through talking to

26:11

quite a few black historians and curiators

26:14

who actually work on these plantations is

26:16

what we really need is for federal

26:18

and state governments to invest money um

26:21

in these plantations and and

26:23

keep them as like museums. Right,

26:25

they need to be designated as designated

26:28

as historical places and

26:30

places of note, and so they can get funding

26:32

so that they can be kept open. What we want is for

26:34

people to hear the actual history of what happened. What

26:37

we don't want is someone uh

26:39

dancing a baby got back on

26:41

the grave of it. It's like, you know, that's what

26:44

But we want these we want

26:47

plantations to stay open as as

26:49

memorials to the pain and

26:51

suffering that that the American

26:54

people in the American government, Black Americans.

26:57

That is what we want more after Okay,

26:59

right, let's

27:08

get right back to it. So how

27:10

should we think about plantations still standing

27:12

today? Jade says. Part

27:14

of the process involves reimagining

27:16

our current understanding of how plantations are

27:19

used and the role they should play in our culture

27:21

going forward, and some plantations

27:23

are doing that kind of work already. At

27:25

Belle Mead Plantation in Nashville, tour

27:28

guide Bridget Jones realized the tour

27:30

focused mostly on wineries and the

27:32

lavish weddings that took place there, so

27:34

she left her job, went to grad school to

27:36

get a master's degree, and became the plantations

27:39

first ever director of African American Studies.

27:42

She now works to uncover never before seeing

27:44

histories of the plantation and incorporates

27:46

them into the plantations stores. Once

27:51

I got promoted, I was like, this is the

27:53

moment for the

27:55

snarrative the slaves to really come

27:58

to the full for it now an abs and of

28:00

the kind of government funding Jade was describing

28:02

earlier, a few plantations

28:04

still need to do weddings and events to make

28:06

money to fund the kind of turation work that Bridget

28:09

Jones does a bell Mead. There are

28:11

a lot of black historians on

28:13

plantations who are doing really really incredible work.

28:15

UM. But what we, like I said, what we found from talking to

28:17

them is that UM,

28:20

in order to pay their salaries, a lot of time

28:22

they the plantations do have to be open

28:24

for events right, and so um,

28:27

I would say that's in the minority, right,

28:29

Like, not every plantation is trying to do

28:31

this, like you know, incredible

28:33

truth telling history. That's that's not

28:36

the reality for most of them, But there are a

28:38

few where black historians and curators

28:40

are on the premises and maybe

28:43

you know, in order to to sort of keep the plantation

28:45

open forward to tell this true history, they

28:47

do need to have um, they need

28:49

to have weddings in order to bring

28:51

in income. And this is why reimagining

28:54

the role that plantations plan our culture is so

28:56

important right now, plantations

28:59

santata or at least compartmentalize

29:02

the history of what actually happened on plantations

29:04

in order to appeal to couples looking for a romantic

29:06

wedding venue. And for a small number

29:09

of those plantations like Belle Meade, that

29:11

money goes into paying for curation that

29:13

tells the truth about slavery. But if

29:15

we were able to designate and preserve plantations

29:17

as historical landmarks, they'd be funded

29:19

as such, which means they wouldn't need to rely

29:22

on sanitizing the legacy of slavery

29:24

and the literal song of dance of the wedding

29:26

industry to stay open, we could have a

29:28

real chance at using plantations to properly

29:31

educate people about and memorialize

29:33

slavery. The Whitney

29:35

Plantation and Museum in Louisiana is

29:37

the only plantation in the state with an exclusive

29:40

focus on the lives of enslaved people. Here's

29:43

their current founder, John Cummings. You

29:46

can't rewrite history, but

29:49

we can correct some of the evils of history,

29:53

and the number one tool that we have education.

29:59

They went viral the summer for a social media

30:01

post explaining why they would never hold a wedding,

30:03

writing, our tour has always focused

30:06

on the brutal labor and stolen freedom of those

30:08

that created vast economic wealth for the

30:10

enslaving families. We do not glamorize

30:13

the big house or the grounds. In

30:15

addition to our mission to educate visitors

30:17

and the larger community about slavery and its legacies.

30:20

This is a site of memory and reference.

30:23

So what if that was the popular understanding

30:25

of the role of plantations in today's culture,

30:28

Not whitewashing them and selling them as romantic

30:30

sites of a bygone era for happy couples,

30:33

but an actual place to memorialize and

30:35

come to terms with the true legacy of slavery

30:38

until then, something we can all do

30:40

right now is spend time reflecting

30:42

critically about the ways the legacy of slavery

30:45

shows up in our culture and our lives. We

30:48

saw a very famous couple, Blake

30:50

Lively and Ryan Reynolds. They had a wedding on a

30:52

plantation. They later apologized for it

30:54

and donated money too, I think the

30:56

end of ACP and had a different, smaller

30:58

ceremony later on. What do you say

31:00

to someone who maybe had a plantation

31:02

wedding, maybe they didn't think about the implications

31:05

of doing it. What's what is your like, how

31:07

should they be thinking about their wedding going

31:09

forward or what? What would you tell them?

31:11

Well, first of all, the thing that's so strange about

31:13

the Blake light of your Brian reynoldson is he's Canadian

31:16

and she's from l A. So really

31:18

confused about like why they

31:20

want to have a wedding on a plantation. It's not a cultural

31:23

touchdone for either of them. Um.

31:25

Um, that thing, that piece has always

31:28

really kind of disturbed me, Like need

31:30

of them have ties, you know, to plantations,

31:33

So I thought that was really weird. Um,

31:36

you know, you know, and I

31:38

think reflecting on

31:41

the experience and taking something

31:43

away from it is enough. You know. I

31:45

don't think they need to renounce their wedding or

31:48

burn the photo books, right, Um.

31:50

But I think in general, um,

31:53

transformative reflection. Reflection can be

31:55

really really transformative, and I think undergoing

31:58

that process is import it in I'm not gonna

32:00

say, oh, now, make a donation of color change you

32:02

have the wedding all planet. I mean, it would be nice,

32:05

Uh, but you know that

32:08

that's not what we're looking for. We're looking, you know, we're

32:10

looking for people to really look deeply

32:12

and look inward about the ways that they

32:14

have you know, perpetuated,

32:17

um, the legacy of slavery, you know. And

32:19

that is one way, but there are plenty of other ways.

32:22

Um. You know, maybe you go to it, maybe

32:24

your kid goes to a high school where they

32:26

seeing Dixie. You know, like, these are the

32:28

things to be reflecting on and looking

32:30

for other ways that the legacy of slavery

32:32

shows up in your life, um, in ways

32:34

that maybe not may not be respectful

32:37

or reverential. When Blake

32:39

Lively and Ryan Reynolds first spoke out about

32:41

their wedding with regret, I have

32:43

to admit I was a little skeptical. How

32:45

could they only now be realizing this wasn't

32:47

a respectful thing to do, I wondered. But

32:50

honestly, it's never too late for anyone

32:52

to start thinking critically about the role slavery place

32:54

in our culture and history. Maybe

32:57

as individuals, we can't turn restill

33:00

Standing Plantation into a site for

33:02

respectful education about slavery, but

33:05

we can work to unpack our own roles

33:08

in honoring the legacy of enslaved people that

33:10

our country was built on. Got

33:16

a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just

33:18

want to say hi, You can be just at Hello

33:20

at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts

33:22

for today's episode at tangdi dot com.

33:25

There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget

33:27

Tod. It's a production of iHeart Radio and

33:29

Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as

33:31

our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our

33:33

producer and sound engineer. Michael

33:35

Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your

33:37

host, bridget Tod. If you want

33:39

to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

33:42

For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the

33:44

iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get

33:47

your podcasts.