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White Supremacists Call Taylor Swift An Aryan Goddess : Code Switch Haters (of a
multicultural society) gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Meanwhile, Swift will
continue to bask in her utterly unremarkable whiteness.


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TAYLOR SWIFT, ARYAN GODDESS?

May 27, 201612:26 PM ET

Leah Donnella

Enlarge this image

Taylor Swift, a pop star who is extraordinary for reasons entirely unrelated to
white nationalism. Taylor Hill/FilmMagic, Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic, Getty Images


Taylor Swift, a pop star who is extraordinary for reasons entirely unrelated to
white nationalism.

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic, Getty Images

So, this is happening: Some white supremacists have anointed Taylor Swift an
"Aryan goddess," claiming that she secretly espouses far-right beliefs and is
waiting for Donald Trump's ascension to the presidency to make her true views
known.

For the record, Swift has no affiliation with any white supremacist groups. She
has never publicly made any white supremacist remarks, nor has she ever been
accused of making them in private. There is no reason to believe she has any
interest whatsoever in any of this.

So where did it come from? Vice's women-centered website, Broadly, did a deep
dive into the history of the Swift-neo-Nazi fantasy and its satirical roots;
it's worth a read if you're interested. It quotes Andre Anglin, who is behind
the Daily Stormer website, lauding Swift's "sculpted Aryan form," as well as the
community manager of the Taylor Swift for Fascist Europe Facebook page, who
praised Swift's "Nordic blood" and the fact that she's not "having gang-bangs
with colored gentlemen" as reasons for her adoration.

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In other words, it seems, the criteria for Aryan goddesses boil down to this:
Swift is white, she looks white, and she hangs out with mostly white people.


GOATS AND SODA


TAYLOR SWIFT IS DREAMING OF A VERY WHITE AFRICA

Swift's whiteness has been scrutinized before. BuzzFeed made a quiz about the
all-white "boyfriends" in her music videos. In 2014, Jezebel wrote an article
urging Swift to befriend a black person — two weeks later, it celebrated the
fact that she had seemingly added two to her roster (Beyonce and Jay Z). In
September, our friends at Goats and Soda yikes'd at her "Wildest Dreams" music
video, which is set somewhere in Africa but contains roughly zero black people.

Again, to state the obvious: None of this means, or even remotely suggests, that
Taylor Swift is into white supremacy.

To state what might be slightly less obvious: None of this is even slightly
remarkable.

Most white people in the United States spend most of their time with other white
people. A 2014 study from the Public Religion Research Institute showed that for
every 91 white friends a white person has, he or she has one black, one Latino,
and one Asian friend. Neighborhoods across the country are, and stay,
segregated. In 2016, public schools in the United States are still being
federally mandated to desegregate. This isn't a Taylor Swift thing. It's a
housing segregation/workplace diversity/general American history thing.



That is to say, it's entirely possible as a white person in this country to not
interact with people of color in any meaningful way, ever. And not just
possible. Fairly likely. Pointing out that a white person chills with other
white people isn't pointing out some extraordinary trait or behavior. (Nor is it
a terribly compelling condemnation or rebuke.)


CODE SWITCH


IN CHICAGO, NEIGHBORHOODS THAT ARE MORE BLACK DON'T GENTRIFY

As we've seen time after time, individuals can have the most progressive views
possible about race and still live in a world that is veritably drenched in
segregation. The fact that Taylor Swift operates, at least publicly, in
predominantly white spaces doesn't really suggest anything notable about her
politics.

It does, of course, suggest something notable about ours as a country. But that
is a conversation for another time.

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