TAYLOR CALLS FOR REMOVAL OF ‘RACIST’ MONUMENTS

The singer raised voice in support of ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement

LOS ANGELES: Taylor Swift said the presence of many “racist” monuments in her home state of Tennessee makes her feel sick as she demanded their removal.

Swift had been quite vocal in her support to ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement in the aftermath of George Floyd’s custodial killing at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In a ‘Twitter’ threat on June 12, the 30-year-old star took aim at two specific Confederate monuments in her home state.

“As a Tennessean, it makes me sick that there are monuments standing in our state that celebrate racist historical figures who did evil things. Edward Carmack and Nathan Bedford Forrest were despicable figures in our state history and should be treated as such,” Swift said. She also dwelled upon the “monstrosity” known as the Nathan Bedford Forrest Equestrian Statue, a 25-foot monument dedicated to the Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan grand wizard. “Nathan Bedford Forrest was a brutal slave trader and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who, during the Civil War, massacred dozens of black Union soldiers in Memphis,” the singer said.

Swift called on ‘Capitol Commission’ and the ‘Tennessee Historical Commission’ to permanently remove the monuments.

“Taking down statues is not going to fix centuries of systemic oppression, violence and hatred that black people have had to endure but it might bring us one small step closer to making all Tennesseans and visitors to our state feel safe not just the white ones,” she said.

“We need to retroactively change the status of people who perpetuated hideous patterns of racism from heroes to villains. And villains do not deserve statues,” she added. Confederate monuments in many southern US states reemerged as a national flashpoint since the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes.

Protesters who decried racism targeted Confederate monuments in multiple cities and some state officials are considering taking them down.