Poor Taylor Swift -- if it's not one thing, it's another, and her latest single, "Shake It Off" -- a song about shaking off all the negative vibes from her haters, even going into detail about how the public analyzes her romantic life -- is catching flak for her video, saying it's racist and is chock-full of cultural appropriation, but here's the thing, dear God, since we even need to go into this, apparently: it's not.
A lot of the racism talk started with Earl Sweatshirt of Odd Future, who tweeted all this:
haven't watched the taylor swift video and I don't need to watch it to tell you that it's inherently offensive and ultimately harmful
perpetuating black stereotypes to the same demographic of white girls who hide their prejudice by proclaiming their love of the culture
for instance, those of you who are afraid of black people but love that in 2014 it's ok for you to be trill or twerk or say n----Now really, we shouldn't even be discussing this, because you can't criticize something like this without even watching it. That's just ridiculous and ignorant and annoying. But even if he had watched the video and come to the same conclusion, well, he'd still be wrong. How is a video of Taylor Swift dancing offensive and harmful? The last time we checked, dancing is for everyone. Taylor did ballet, lyrical, hip hop, and then she posed with a bunch of girls who twerked while she she just kind of shook her ass because, bless her, she's wise enough to know that she does not possess that skill. It's a fun video, and really, these days, the world could use a dumb, fun little Taylor Swift video.
So everyone, please: stop trying to find gigantic issues in things where there just aren't any. There are enough things going on that actually are offensive and harmful, and there sure as hell is real racism out there. Let's not waste our energy on fighting against harmless, sweet little Taylor Swift.