Are Taylor Swift and Iggy Azalea Waving White-Skin Privilege in Black Women's Faces?

 Let me be clear about this.  As humans, we all appropriate one another's music and other aspects of culture as we mingle and interact.  This is good and healthy. And yes, imitation is the highest form of flattery.  So, please be careful not to misinterpret the latest critics of Taylor Swift's latest video "Shake It Off."  What they are talking about is something else altogether.  But since they don't control the media or entertainment industry it is not surprising that their message keeps getting garbled  beyond recognition.

So, I will try to clarify this issue.  Black women are acting out of frustration (not racism) when they point out that White female entertainers like Taylor Swift and Iggy Azalea are able to co-opt and benefit from certain aspects of Black culture, without suffering any of the negative consequences that Black women are forced to pay for living that culture 24/7.  In an article entitled: Taylor Shift Can't Shake Off White Privilege by Celeste Montano, the author notes:

But by some funny coincidence, it’s a black woman who’s front and center in the video’s most recognizable scene: the bridge of twerking bodies. At this point, the camera gets so close that the women become nothing but legs and butts as a wide-eyed Taylor that crawls beneath them. It’s a black woman’s body that the camera features most prominently at this moment; it’s a black woman that Taylor gapes at unapologetically. . .
She surrounds herself with hip hop and breakdancing, but the point is to reject those things with a self-deprecating attitude. When we see Taylor goofily failing to twerk, she seems to be saying, “haha I’m such a white girl, this is so embarrassing,” which is actually code for “haha I fail at being sexual or dirty or threatening, I’m just innocent and endearing.”

Sociologist, Dr Zuleyka Zevallos, wrote an insightful blog post entitled:  Taylor Swift Having Fun with White Privilege in which she pointed out:

[White entertainers] profit from the “coolness” and imagined “street cred” of being The Other, safe in the knowledge that their Whiteness protects them from the racism, hyper sexism, social stigma and additional violence that women of colour live with.Research shows that women of colour experience a higher rate and more aggressive forms of sexual harassment because of their perceived sexual availability. By presenting women of colour as little more than backdrop sex dolls, White women starlets like Swift remain at the centre of culture, while the women they use as props and parody remain on the outside.

This social reality is not the fault of either Taylor Swift or Iggy Azalea. And all entertainers, Black ones included, dream to have their cultural creations imitated and spread across the globe.  But the latter do ask one small favor in return.  Show in some way, however symbolic and small that you honor where it came from and what it cost in human pain to create.  (And bytheway, claiming you show respect for Black culture by grabbing hold of a Black boyfriend when the critics came after you is trite.)

RELATED POST:  Iggy Azalea Please Pack up Your Minstrel Show