Profit and white reassurance drive plantation museums more than explicit hatred

Evidence

If these sites are not motivated by racism, then by what? I believe it is an array of material, political, and psychological factors. These institutions seek to make a profit in an age in which national and global tourism is expanding exponentially. They seek to present the United States as a nation with an impressive architectural and cultural history, and the South as the backbone of that history (especially in comparison with Europe, in whose historical shadows the USA cowers). And they seek to assuage White southerners in particular, perhaps all whites in general, that slavery was not so bad for those who lived it, that the real victims were White southerners, and that the past houses many memories that one should be proud of. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1904

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to standing directive and to work on how economic incentives structure ideological production — echoes Milgrom-style institutional analysis applied to culture.