Is Dolly Parton teaching children about “white privilege” by giving them free books for decades?
Dolly Parton: The Legend
Dolly Parton is a leading contender for “most beloved American icon” and has been so for most of her life. Parton famously hails from impoverished circumstances in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, which she has immortalized in songs like “In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad),” and began performing as a musician in church by the age of six.
After graduating high school, Parton moved to the country music hub of Nashville, where she began a career writing songs for other performers and eventually became known for her powerful voice, comedic presence, and blonde bouffant hairstyle on the popular music program The Porter Wagoner Show.
Since then, she has scored literally dozens of hits in country and pop music, starred in movies like 9 to 5 (1980) and Steel Magnolias (1989), and released innumerable albums.
She will next release Dolly Parton & Family: Smoky Mountain DNA – Family, Faith & Fables, a new album focused on her family history. It will be released on November 15 alongside a four-part documentary series of the same name.
Related: Dolly Parton Exiles Royal Family, American Treasure Rejects Kate Middleton’s Prestigious Offer
Dolly Parton is also known for Dollywood, her massively popular theme park in Tennessee. While Dollywood might be (slightly) less well known than Disneyland or Six Flags, it has been voted as one of the world's best vacation destinations numerous times.
Just recently, Tripadvisor awarded Dollywood the number one slot in the 2024 Travelers’ Choice Best of the Best Awards and it ranks #10 (and the sole North American park) on the well-regarded Travelers’ Choice Top 25 Worldwide Amusement Parks list.
The Imagination Library
As though her ever-expanding theme parks were not enough, Dolly Parton is also well known for her philanthropic spirit. The singer is particularly known for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, an organization that has provided reading material to millions of children for years. The Imagination Library has been awarded the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, the Best Practices award from the Library of Congress Literacy Awards, and recognition in Reading Psychology.
It describes itself as:
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth to age five, no matter their family’s income.
After launching in 1995, the program grew quickly. First books were only distributed to children living in Sevier County, Tennessee where Dolly grew up. It became such a success that in 2000 a national replication effort was underway. By 2003, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library had mailed one million books. It would prove to be the first of many millions of books sent to children around the world.
Dolly’s home state of Tennessee pledged to pursue statewide coverage in 2004 and global expansion was on the horizon. After the United States, the program launched in Canada in 2006 followed by the United Kingdom in 2007, Australiain 2013 and the Republic of Ireland in 2019.
Among all of her endeavors, the Imagination Library might be the most beloved, which makes it all the more bewildering that it is the subject of research claiming that Dolly Parton and her organization are actively reinforcing notions of white privilege, heteronormativity, and the erasure of “dis/abilities, non-normative gender identities, or non-normative family structures.”
Speech-language pathologist Jennifer Stone has published a dissertation through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School titled “Reading Power With and Through Dolly Parton's Imagination Library: A Critical Content Analysis,” which uses critical race theory to assert that Dolly Parton and her philanthropy should not be providing free picture (and other) books to children, essentially because they reinforce existing social structures.
The dissertation abstract admits that “Policymakers share DPIL’s intention to leverage the power of picturebooks to transform family literacy practices. Families who own picturebooks read aloud early and often, and daily read-aloud habits have positive impacts on measures of children’s language and pre-literacy skills.”
But goes on to claim that:
“Unfortunately, picturebooks consistently misrepresent both reading and culture, which means the content of DPIL books could undermine DPIL's purpose and perpetuate negative stereotypes while potentially inculcating community-wide biases regarding both literacy and cultural identities during a vulnerable life stage for two generations. The critical content analysis of the DPIL 2022 kindergarten corpus reported in this dissertation revealed explicit and implicit representations of literacy, race, class, gender, and dis/ability.”
Stone further asserts that the Imagination Library books represent primarily “Three inductively derived themes: reading to succeed, living the American dream, and perfecting parenting revealed complex intersections of discourses of power that resulted in oppressive childism, which operated to subjugate children and to privilege a White, middle-class, cis-gendered, heteronormative, able-bodied American norm.”
Related: Dolly Parton Releases Rapid Statement Amid Dollywood’s Battle With The Walt Disney Company
She further goes on to state, “I now understand literacies as multiple and dynamic and literacy intervention as potentially dangerous and informed by White saviorism.”
Dolly Parton is not above criticism. Very recently, her refusal to outright condemn LGBTQIA+ individuals as immoral and against Christian principles was condemned in a Federalist op-ed that stated, “She’s right that all should be treated with love and kindness, but when we refuse to label sin a sin, we’re doing more harm than good. The gospel of Dolly Parton is popular with the masses, but don’t bank your eternity on it.”
But now it appears that Parton is coming under fire for both being too liberal and non-judgemental in her work and also being too conservative and promoting patriarchal notions of white privilege. It really seems like, for all the good she does, Dolly Parton can't get a break.
Do you think the Imagination Library reinforces white privilege? Opinions below!
Any millionaire who shares their wealth with their own kind should not be criticized. Any non-kind can enjoy her generosity if they choose. If some people maybe 3% of the country are jealous this is how they react. White privilege is a bad description of a country’s sucsess. It’s the American reward for going along with the ideas and programs that turned out positive, like school for all, scouts, parks and recreation depts, 40 hour work week, school sports. I could go on and on. Our country has made life much better because of people like Dolly Pardon.. Don’t knock it. It seems people want to pick on something for the sake of picking on something like sports teams mascots and club names, give me a break, get a job, stop whining and get yourself so busy with your life and family so you can enjoy our country’s privileges.
Wow, professing ideas of the nuclear family are scandalous? Leave Dolly alone. She is the shining example of giving back.
When the CRT grifters care enough to give instead of take, they can start giving away their select books…if anyone is interested in such a message to children.
No common sense applied in the research. When have kindness and decency become labeled as detrimental. Children can make up their own mind. They don’t need this narrow minded individual deciding for them.
Wow…. We are now a society of complain about everything. Someone is trying to do something good for many but people who feel their opinion should be the only out there want to hold back those trying to make a positive change.
Dolly Parton does great work for everybody.
That person’s so-called research is just another example of somebody who wants to gripe about something. If they’re not happy with the way Dolly Parton does for books or her program works then she needs to create her own library and give out free books to everybody.
Since when did books for children about being nice, treating other people kind like, learning to share, and enjoying life become a negative?!
The idea that Dolly Parton is influencing children in any negative way is absurd. My youngest child was a recipient of the Imagination Library in the early 90’s. He received wonderful, age appropriate books each month. I give all the credit for his love of reading and incredible sense of reason to Dolly’s program.
This whole concept is absurd. Providing age-appropriate books for children can never be a bad thing.
The best place to put Jennifer Stone’s dissertation is in a trash can. CRT is not an honest standard by which to measure anything.
My grandson receives these books it is such a wonderful program I even get excited to see what the next book is in the mail we love you Dolly! Don’t listen to the poop stirrers You are beautiful inside and out.
Some people in this world just want to complain about a woman who went from nothing to be the queen of country. That lady has don more for this country than all other ones who like to spout about what they have done. Why does everyone want to butch about a giving heart. Dolly has never shown partiality to any race. Gloria up people and find yourself giving as much as she has
The Imagination Library is one of the greatest ideas ever. It is available throughout the US and in several other countries. The books are wonderful, and the kids are delighted to get mail. How can introducing the joy of reading to little ones be a bad thing? Whether you’re a Dolly fan or not, her giving heart and genuine love for all people is indisputable. The list of her good works is long, and she is much loved in her home state of Tennessee. The World needs more people with her kind of incredible goodness.