The ACLU of Northern California is representing a blogger who wrote about singer Taylor Swift and one of her latest singles. It’s in response to a post where editor Meghan Herning notes Taylor Swift has become an “alt-right” icon—and the artist needs to pointedly denounce these fans’ white supremacist values. ACLU explains in a press release:
On Sep. 5, PopFront editor Meghan Herning wrote a post titled “Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation.” The post is a mix of political speech and critical commentary, and discusses the resurgence of white supremacy and the fact that some white supremacists have embraced Swift. It also provides a critical interpretation of some of Swift’s music, lyrics, and videos. The post ends by calling on Swift to personally denounce white supremacy, saying “silence in the face of injustice means support for the oppressor.”
On Oct. 25, Herning received an intimidating letter from Swift and her attorney labeling the blog post as defamatory and demanding that she issue a retraction, remove the story from all media sources, and cease and desist. The letter threatened a lawsuit.
The ACLU wrote a letter to Taylor Swift and her lawyer demanding another letter promising they won’t pursue a lawsuit.
This … doesn’t look good. Not only did Swift bring more attention to this post, she made her silence (and complacency) even louder. It only makes Swift look even more racist because it makes me immediately think (a) she is also a white supremacist, or (b) she doesn’t want to lose white supremacists’ money and adoration. Either way: this is a really bad look.