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Picking the deadliest weapon from her quiver of controversial opinions, a California professor wondered if being a Taylor Swift fan might add to racism.
Nearly two weeks ago, Melina Abdullah, the Pan-African Studies professor at Cal State University Los Angeles, tweeted: “Why do I feel like it’s slightly racist to be a Taylor Swift fan?” Her X (formerly Twitter) profile introduces her as “#BlackLivesMatter organiser, Pan-Africanist, Hip Hop scholar, daughter of God, womanist, truth-teller, mama.”
On being probed by a non-Swiftie as to why her thoughts ran along those notes, she asserted, “I said FEEL, not think. Kind of like that feeling I get when there are too many American flags.”
The discussion didn’t end there. In a follow-up tweet on X, she wrote: “ Why do I feel like this was some right-wing, white-supremacist conspiracy?!?! Booooooo!!!!”, addressing the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl win.
Also read: Taylor Swift surprises 9-year-old cancer patient with a heart-melting gesture
As her tweets about Taylor Swift caught traction on social media, she continued posting about the issue. In 2017, The College Fix reported another one of her controversial comments at the Cal State Fullerton conference on intersectionality and discrimination. The Black Lives Matter organiser referred to present-day police officers as “slave catchers” of the past.
Responding to the attention she’d gained from the Taylor Swift-Super Bowl posts, she tweeted how “Virtually everything is racist” and that she’s not offended by folks attacking her on social media.
With everything that’s happened and all the interactions she’s gained this past week, Abdullah again took to her X profile to shed light on the kind of hateful responses that have come her way. Labelling these people as “white-delusionists”, the professor decided to share one of the voice messages she’d received.
In the subsequent post, she addressed a man named Ethan George from Texas who’d supposedly sent her a sternly vehement response about her previous Taylor Swift tweet.
After introducing himself, his voice note continues: “You’re a joke. You’re disgusting … You’re what’s wrong with this country. You’re the reason we’re headed in such a negative direction. How dare you?….” The remaining major section of the audio message begins battering her with severe expletives.
Cornering George’s message, she left another note on her page: “Y’all are full-fledged violent white-delusionists.”
Fox News even tracked her controversial messages on X from 2022, wherein she posted about Juneteenth celebrations not being for white people. “Attention white people… Please don’t ask if you can come to the cookout….,” she wrote in her June 2022 post.
The Black Lives Matter Grassroots website lists her as the director of the activist wing and the co-founder of Black Lives Matter’s LA chapter. She secured her PhD in Political Science from USC and is the creator-host-producer of radio shows Move the Crowd (KPFK 90.7 FM) and This Is Not a Drill! (KBLA Talk 1580).
