Culture

Taylor Swift wants 'racist' monuments in Tennessee removed

Strongly supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, the singer remanded removal of the monuments of historical figures who did “evil things, in her home state Tennessee.

ByIFP Bureau

Updated 14 Jun 2020, 7:36 am

American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift (PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons)
American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift (PHOTO: Wikipedia Commons)

Lending strong support to ‘Black Lives Matter’ amid the continuing protest against the killing of George Floyd, Taylor Swift has demanded the removal of "racist" monuments of historical figures who did “evil things”, in her home state Tennessee, saying that they make her feel sick.

The Black Lives Matter movement sprung up following the custodial killing of George Floyd, 46-year-old black man in Minneapolis, Minnesota. George died after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes.

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Expressing strong support to the movement, the Tennessee singer took to Twitter on Friday demanding the removal of the monuments of historical figures who did “evil things”.

"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 tweeted.

The 25-foot monument of Nathan Bedford Forrest Equestrian Statue was built in dedication to the 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," she said, demanding the Capitol Commission and the Tennessee Historical Commission to permanently remove the monuments.

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"Taking down statues isn't 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.

Reiterating her demand, the 30-year-old singer pointed out that villains don’t deserve statues. "We need to retroactively change the status of people who perpetuated hideous patterns of racism from heroes' to villains.' And villains don't deserve statues," the American singer-song-writer said.

The death of George Floyd sparked off massive riots in the country as people took out violent protests and decried racism in major cities across the United States.

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Taylor Swiftracist monumentsTennesseeGeorge Floyd

IFP Bureau

IFP Bureau

IMPHAL, Manipur

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