Taylor Swift continues to be vocal about the topics she is passionate about. In a lengthy post shared on Friday, the 30-year-old singer calls for the removal of white supremacist statues in her home state of Tennessee. Swift begins by sharing that she is asking the Capital Commission and the Tennessee Historical Commission to “consider the implications of how hurtful it would be to continue fighting for these monuments.”
Expressing that it makes her “sick” to see the monuments that “celebrate racist historian figures who did evil things,” she details how Edward Carmack, a “white supremacist newspaper editor,” and Confederate general-turned-KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forest were “despicable figures.”
She goes on to explain what these men are known for and why replacing Carmack’s recently torn down statue “is a waste of state funds and a waste of an opportunity to do the right thing.”
While she admits that taking down statues isn’t going to fix centuries of systemic oppression, violence and hatred that black people have endured, Swift notes that “it might bring us one small step closer to making ALL Tennesseans and visitors to our state feel safe – not just the white ones.”
“We need to retroactively change the status of people who perpetuated hideous patterns of racism from ‘heroes’ to ‘villains,'” she writes, adding, “And villains don’t deserve statues.”
“When you fight to honor racists, you show black Tennesseans and all of their allies where you stand, and you continue this cycle of hurt. You can’t change history, but you can change this.”
The “Lover” singer’s comments come weeks after she slammed President Donald Trump for “threatening violence” as people protested following the fatal arrest of George Floyd.
“After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence?” she wrote. “‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’??? We will vote you out in November. @realdonaldtrump.”
In her Netflix documentary, Taylor Swift: Miss Americana, Swift explained why it was important for her to speak out politically despite some objections from her team and family.
“This was a situation where, from a humanity perspective, and from what my moral compass was telling me I needed to do, I knew I was right, and I really didn’t care about repercussions,” she told Variety. “My dad is terrified of threats against my safety and my life, and he has to see how many stalkers we deal with on a daily basis, and know that [I’m] his kid. It’s where he comes from.”
She admitted that she was hesitant to speak out sooner because she didn’t think people wanted to hear what she thought.
“Every time I didn’t speak up about politics as a young person, I was applauded for it. It was wild. I said, ‘I’m a 22-year-old girl — people don’t want to hear what I have to say about politics.’ And people would just be like, ‘Yeahhhhh!,” she explained, adding that she also saw how the Dixie Chicks were exiled after Natalie Maines’ comment against then-President George W. Bush.
