The thing about Dolly Parton is that Dolly Parton will always be Dolly Parton. There’s a whole podcast about it. Did you listen? It’s called Dolly Parton’s America, and Jad Abumrad of WNYC’s Radiolab hosts it. He tries to figure out why everyone loves Parton so much—like, everyone—and the answer seems to be consistency. She has a consistently quick mind self-deprecation bent (i.e. boob jokes), plus a consistent acceptance of any and all. She never says anything too political.
So it’s unusual, then, that she commented on Black Lives Matter in a Billboard profile published Thursday, a movement that has been politicized endlessly. “I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen,” she said in an apparent show of support. “And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”
At first glance it’s kind of wild to think the movement is not too political even for Dolly Parton, or that Dolly Parton, post-nine-episode podcast, has gotten a little more acclimated to taking risks with what she says. But actually, when you think about it, supporting BLM fits pretty neatly into the Gospel of Dolly.
As she said later, “First of all, I’m not a judgmental person. I do believe we all have a right to be exactly who we are, and it is not my place to judge.All these good Christian people that are supposed to be such good Christian people, the last thing we’re supposed to do is to judge one another. God is the judge, not us. I just try to be myself. I try to let everybody else be themselves.” No boob joke necessary.
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