Say Something, Taylor Swift

White people have assumed the right to define what a human is and who has access to that humanity.  This is not a new idea, this is something that we have been talking about all semester long in order that we might interpret the decisions and statements people have made in the past and now.  There have been steps taken and victories accomplished to assert the truth that humanity is not only what one group of people define it to be, that humanity extends beyond the ability to speak formal English, the adherence to particular ideologies, the color of your skin, and honestly, that being American shouldn’t mean these things either.  I don’t think many people we would come in contact with would express explicitly that they believe these things, but this idea is blatantly obvious in our country: the color of your skin determines your interactions with law enforcement, your name determines your access to housing, your language determines the seriousness with which people will listen to you. 

There is a pastor named John Piper who recently observed that “the more dominant a culture is, the more invisible it is to us.”  So, the more control a particular culture has on our everyday decision making and expectations, the more normalized a culture becomes, the less we will notice it.  Not a novel idea, but an important one.  We talk about education, and really education is paramount in exposing the destructive nature of the status quo in the United States.  Often the obvious has to be explicitly mentioned.  But I don’t think education is the only avenue through which this exposure can be made.  There are a group of individuals who have an immense impact on the formation of ideologies, biases, principles and ethics of younger (and older really) generations of Americans.  Celebrities. 

Celebrities are on the forefront of the culture, having their every move, comment, mistake, and victory splattered across the news, disseminated to everyone’s personal devices.  Whether they would like it or not, whether it is fair or not, that is the reality.  Because of this, how impactful would it be for them to take stands against the cultural expectations ingrained into this nation in their career, their comments, their customs?  Is it wrong to almost expect them to do this?  For example, there has been a bit of outcry against Taylor Swift, yes about her new album, but even before this in her videos (Wildest Dreams and Look What You Made Me Do specifically), her lyrics, and her lifestyle, protesting that she seems to be painting herself a white victim, alt-right sympathizer, innocent and misunderstood injured woman.  Regardless of what her political beliefs are or personal ideology, she has been adopted as the image of neo-nazism.  I have no idea what Taylor Swift thinks about this except that she doesn’t like when people bring it up (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/11/07/aclu-scolds-taylor-swift-for-effort-to-protect-reputation/?utm_term=.4a499bdf471a)  (I admit, I have not done an exhaustive amount of research on Taylor Swift specifically so please, if you have more information, comment it!) What would it look like, though, for someone like Taylor Swift to respond back to these with denouncements if not apologies or change?  What would it look like for her to take a stand against those who would associate her white supremacy?  I don’t know if she wants to, I don’t really know if her specific voice would have an immense impact on American culture.  But my point is, how can we increase the cultures of minority cultures in this country if the dominant culture is continually perpetuated by some of the the biggest influences of the culture? How do we make the dominant culture “more visible,” other cultures more influential in this country?  I’m prone to think that the celebrities whom we watch so closely have a greater hold over our cultural standings than we give them credit, what do y’all think?  Are there other specific celebrities you see as doing a good job of this?  Other celebrities who you think could make a big difference if they took up the torch to establish equity among humans in this nation? To breakdown the culture of power so established here? 

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