NEW YORK: Singer Taylor Swift has demanded the removal of all public statues of racist historical figures and white supremacists in her home state of Tennessee in the United States.
While addressing the Capital Commission and the Tennessee Historical Commission on her Instagram post, the singer asked the organizations to consider the implications of how hurtful it would be to continue fighting for these monuments.
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“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 30-year-old singer wrote.
Taylor Swift continued that it makes her sick to see the monuments that celebrate racist historical figures who did evil things, name dropping despicable figures like white supremacist newspaper editor Edward Carmack and slave trader-turned-KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest.
“We need to retroactively change the status of people who perpetuated hideous patterns of racism from heroes to villains,” she said by adding, “And villains don’t deserve statues.”
The singer’s statement comes after statues around the world are being pulled down by demonstrators amid protests following the death of George Floyd.
Protesters in both the US and UK have been toppling statues of controversial historical figures throughout the month of June, most recently in Camden, New Jersey, where a figure of Christopher Columbus was beheaded.
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