Maybe the Worst Op-Ed Ever Written

..and the award goes to someone named Blain Roberts for her New York Times article
entitled, "The Ugly Side of the Southern Belle" (via Althouse).

The woman starts by calling Brooklyn "the epicenter of all things ironic and progressive", meaning she's never been there, then ends with "still, we would do well to remember the troubling historical links between Southern beauty queens and racial politics, even when the winner lives in Brooklyn".  All in an effort to somehow tie the current Miss America to slavery and racism because she's originally from the south.  Apparently.  


Really, does she think Mallory Hagen represents some kind of evil cheating shrew hiding behind the progressive New York image to cloak her sordid Alabama heritage and its conjured visions of Jim Crow and shouldn't be getting away with it?   As a history professor she should know that New York once allowed slaves.  Yet she lectures readers by saying "we would do well to remember", blah, blah, racism, ie, don't be fooled by her New York banner--this girl might be the same kind of southern scum as Lynda Mead, who once refused to apologize for Mississippi.  And ask her about the swimming pools!      

Such weird hatred.  One has to wonder if she herself didn't win some contest years ago, losing out to a fellow southern gal whom she still hates and therefore projects bitter feelings onto all southern beauty contest winners, especially those craven enough to move north and win as pretend-Yankees?   Maybe her doctor should ask about access to guns in the house.. hey, just following the president's orders.       

Whatever the case, if her analysis represents the typical content of modern university history professors then far too many American parents and students are getting ripped off on tuition.  We already know what it says about the NY Times.