"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," the singer says.
Taylor Swift on Friday used her gigantic social media presence to call for the permanent removal of all Confederate statues in the state of Tennessee.
A number of highly-controversial statues have been toppled around the globe amid worldwide anti-racism protests in the wake of George Floyd's death.
The Grammy-winning singer in a long series of tweets said she encouraged the statues being removed.
"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 began. "Edward Carmack and Nathan Bedford Forrest were DESPICABLE figures in our state history and should be treated as such."
She continued, "Edward Carmack’s statue was sitting in the state Capitol until it was torn down last week in the protests. The state of Tennessee has vowed to replace it. FYI, he was a white supremacist newspaper editor who published pro-lynching editorials and incited the arson of the office of Ida B. Wells (who actually deserves a hero’s statue for her pioneering work in journalism and civil rights)."
Swift, who has more than 86 million followers on Twitter alone, said replacing Carmack’s statue, which was removed May 30, was a "waste of state funds and a waste of an opportunity to do the right thing."
Along with her messages, Swift shared a news piece about one of the men, who she called a "monstrosity."
"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 wrote.
Further, Swift added, "I’m asking the Capitol Commission and the Tennessee Historical Commission to please consider the implications of how hurtful it would be to continue fighting for these monuments."
Swift concluded her long Twitter thread with, "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."
This is far from the first time Swift has used social media to weigh in on politics, but this is the most in-depth she has ever gotten on a political issue.
In late May, Swift tweeted to President Donald Trump that she was disgusted with his comments about protesters and that he would be defeated in November.
As for the statues coming down, Trump has used the efforts to fire up his base, telling them that their proud history is being erased.
