What Dolly Parton Can Teach Us About Inclusion

In a country where it sometimes seems we can disagree about almost anything, there has long been at least one person who managed to inspire affection across many of the lines that divide us:

Dolly Parton.

People with vastly different political beliefs, backgrounds and identities found something to love about Dolly. She was unapologetically Southern and deeply connected to her Tennessee roots. She also spoke in support of LGBTQ+ people, invested heavily in literacy, medical research, disaster relief, and her community. And she demonstrated a willingness to reconsider traditions when she learned they might be hurting others.

In the weeks since her death, the tributes have reflected that remarkable ability to connect with people across generations, geography and political beliefs.

Maybe that’s part of what Dolly can teach us about inclusion.

I learned that lesson in a particularly memorable way.

A Fourth of July Weekend in Pigeon Forge

In July 2016, my husband, son and I traveled to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, over the Fourth of July weekend with close family friends and their three children. My husband and son are Black. Our friends and their children are Asian. I’m white.

Pigeon Forge was packed. American flags were everywhere, as you might expect over the Fourth of July. So were MAGA hats and other political apparel. The political and cultural identity of much of the crowd was impossible to miss.

One of our friends (not me, I would like the record to reflect) suggested that we go to Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede.

We managed to get last-minute front-row seats…on the North side. The South side was sold out. That should have been our first clue. What followed was something none of us expected.

The audience was divided into North and South, and the two sides competed against each other during a highly sanitized, family-entertainment version of the Civil War. The North side was encouraged to heckle the South as “flat-headed, narrow-minded, short-sighted feather brains.” Likewise, the South was encouraged to ridicule the North as “foul-smelling, gold-diggers.” Even the bathrooms continued the theme, separating guests into Northerners and Southerners.

That evening, the South won.

Being there with my husband, our son and our friends, the whole thing felt increasingly surreal. And afterward, walking back into that packed Fourth of July crowd, I remember feeling uncomfortable. Even unsafe. The combination of the Civil War-themed show we had just experienced, the political messages around us and the fact that we were a visibly multiracial group left me unusually aware of our surroundings.

I’m white. I could blend into that crowd in a way that the people I loved could not.

I remember thinking: If I feel this uncomfortable, I can only imagine what this experience feels like for them.

Ten years later, I found myself thinking about that night again.

When History Becomes Entertainment

This past weekend, the University of Kansas and University of Missouri renewed their historic Border War football rivalry. The rivalry has roots that reach far beyond football to the violent conflict between the two states surrounding slavery before and during the Civil War.

Before the game, Kansas released a hype video leaning directly into that history. It referenced slavery, abolitionist John Brown, Confederate guerrilla William Quantrill and the bloodshed of the Civil War era. The video framed the rivalry in terms of “heroes and villains” and “right and wrong.”

After Missouri’s 38–21 victory, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz criticized the decision to invoke the Civil War in promoting a football game. He questioned the need to stir that history back up and acknowledged that his reaction to the video influenced how aggressively he approached the end of the game.

To be clear, the situations aren’t identical. Kansas wasn’t celebrating the Confederacy. Its messaging drew heavily on Kansas’s abolitionist history and the very real violence that occurred along the Kansas-Missouri border.

But watching the controversy unfold brought me right back to that night in Pigeon Forge and raised a question that feels remarkably familiar: When does remembering history become turning painful history into entertainment?

And perhaps an even more important question for those of us who care about inclusion: Who gets to decide where that line is?

That brings me back to Dolly.

Intent and Impact Can Be Different

I don’t tell this story because I believe Dolly Parton created the attraction intending to celebrate racism. At the time, I honestly wondered if she even knew the extent of what was happening at the attraction. I sincerely hoped she didn’t.

In fact, that’s precisely why I think the story matters.

Most exclusion in organizations isn’t caused by people who wake up in the morning intending to exclude someone. Traditions develop. Language becomes normalized. Practices continue because that’s how we’ve always done it.

And when we’re part of the dominant culture, we may not see what someone with a different identity sees immediately.

The important question isn’t simply: Did you intend to cause harm?

It’s also: What do you do when someone tells you that you did?

That is where Dolly’s story gets interesting.

Someone Told Dolly

In 2017, writer Aisha Harris published a critique of the Dixie Stampede experience, describing the North-versus-South competition and questioning the decision to turn the Civil War into family entertainment while essentially removing slavery from the story.

Dolly could have become defensive. She could have said people were too sensitive. She could have explained that the attraction had operated for years and millions of people had enjoyed it. She could have insisted that nobody intended anything racist.

Instead, things changed.

Beginning with the 2018 season, “Dixie” disappeared from the attraction’s name. Direct references to the Civil War, generals and problematic songs were removed as well.

Dolly later spoke about what she had learned. She explained that she hadn’t thought about the word and the attraction in the way others experienced them. But once she understood that something she was doing could hurt people, her response was characteristically direct:

“As soon as you realize that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don’t be a dumbass. That’s where my heart is. I would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose.”

She didn’t spend her energy trying to prove she was a good person. She listened and then she changed something.

That response may tell us something important about why Dolly Parton remained beloved by people who agreed on very little else.

Inclusion Doesn’t Require Perfection

We sometimes talk about inclusion as though the goal is to become so culturally competent that we never make another mistake.

That’s unrealistic. We’re human. We see the world through our own experiences. We will miss things. We will use language we later learn has a different impact than we intended. We will continue traditions without questioning where they came from. We will make assumptions.

The real test of inclusion may be what happens next.

• Can someone tell us that something affected them differently than we intended?
• Can we hear that feedback without immediately defending our character?
• Can we distinguish between “I did something that caused harm” and “I am a bad person”?
• And can we change?

Dolly didn’t need to renounce Tennessee, country music, Southern culture or the people who loved the Dixie Stampede.

She simply needed to recognize that one part of something she had created landed very differently and caused harm for other people.

She could keep what was joyful: the horses, music, competition, spectacle and entertainment. And she could let go of something that wasn’t necessary.

That’s inclusion.

Maybe That’s the Dolly Effect

Dolly Parton spent her career being unmistakably herself, even to the point of self-deprecation. She didn’t abandon where she came from in order to welcome people who came from somewhere else. Perhaps that’s one reason so many different people saw something of themselves in her.

There is a lesson in that for organizations navigating DEI today. Inclusion doesn’t have to begin with agreement on every social or political issue. It can begin with something much more human:

I may not have experienced what you experienced. But I’m willing to listen.

And when we discover that something we’ve always done is unnecessarily making it harder for someone else to belong, we don’t have to spend all our energy proving that we never meant any harm. Sometimes we can just change it. Like Dolly did. And maybe the ability to say, “I didn’t know. Now I know. Let’s make it better,” is one of the most inclusive things any of us can do.