It’s almost 2020 and people are still getting married on plantations. For those who aren’t familiar with that controversial southern affair, people actually choose slave plantations for their wedding venue.
It’s a practice that #Pinterest and #TheKnot, two of the country’s biggest online wedding platforms, are apparently just now realizing is problematic. They have vowed to stop promoting venues that romanticize plantation weddings on their respective websites, BuzzFeed News reports.
But this doesn’t stop the practice all-together. Plantations will still be able to list themselves as venues on The Knot but Chief Marketing Officer Dhanusha Sivajee said the new guidelines they are creating are meant to ensure that wedding vendors aren’t referring to a history that includes slavery using language such as “elegant” or “charming.”
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“We want to make sure we’re serving all our couples and that they don’t feel in any way discriminated against,” Sivajee said.
The new language guidelines will apply to all wedding venues that list on The Knot websites, not just venues that market themselves as plantations, Sivajee said, adding, “You can imagine there could be former plantations that maybe have changed their names to manors or farms.”
A Pinterest spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the company will restrict plantation wedding content on its website. Pinterest is also working on de-indexing Google searches for plantation weddings on their site.
Though users can still search for it, they’ll see an advisory that some of that content may violate Pinterest’s policies.
“Weddings should be a symbol of love and unity. Plantations represent none of those things,” the Pinterest spokesperson wrote in an email. “We are working to limit the distribution of this content and accounts across our platform, and continue to not accept advertisements for them.”
These changes are being made amid pressure from Color of Change, a civil rights advocacy group, urging the companies to stop promoting plantations that formerly had slaves as wedding venues altogether.
Roommates, what are your thoughts on this one? Let us know!
