Taylor Swift is calling on Tennessee lawmakers to remove all “racist” monuments. The pop star, 30, made an impassioned plea to Capitol Commission and the Tennessee Historical Commission…
Taylor Swift is calling on Tennessee lawmakers to remove all “racist” monuments.
The pop star, 30, made an impassioned plea to Capitol Commission and the Tennessee Historical Commission on social media Friday to stop honoring historical bigots.
“As a Tennessean, it makes me sick that there are monuments standing in our state that celebrate racist historical figures who did evil things,” Swift wrote in a message shared on Instagram. “Edward Carmack and Nathan Bedford Forrest were DESPICABLE figures in our state history and should be treated as such.”
In the caption, Swift added: “When you fight to honor racists, you show Black Tennesseans and all of their allies where you stand.”
A statue of Carmack – whom Swift described as a “white supremacist newspaper editor who published pro-lynching editorials and incited the arson of the office of Ida B. Wells” – was torn down by protesters outside the Tennessee state Capitol amid ongoing anti-racism protests following the May 25th death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
