Opinion
A California State University professor made headlines for her posts about X during the Super Bowl. Melina Abdullah, who is no stranger to controversy, reflected on what she felt was the inherent racism associated with being a Taylor Swift fan.
For most mega-superstars like Taylor Swift, any publicity, including this little episode of supposed negative publicity, is good for the Taylor Swift brand. The more we talk about it, the bigger it will become and, why not, this is a free country (currently) and Ms. Swift unlocked the key to stardom just as other pioneers before her such as Mariah Carey, Tina Turner and Stevie Nicks had done.
But the comments Ms. Abdullah made about X were less about Taylor Swift or even racism and more about another victimized self-proclaimed academic elite generating publicity.
Because you are a racist
Cal State University Pan-African Studies professor Melina Abdullah wrote in X on Super Bowl Sunday:
“Why do I think it’s a little racist to be a Taylor Swift fan?”
When a user asked her to explain why she feels this way about Taylor Swift fans, she wrote:
“Kind of like that feeling I get when there are too many American flags.”
There’s nothing like clarifying a statement with another vague statement. How many flags constitute too many?
The leap Ms. Abdullah hopes people will make with her comment about Taylor Swift fans is that the fact that Taylor Swift is so successful and white makes her fans inherently racist, even if just a little. But deep down, the reason Ms. Abdullah feels this way (if she actually does) is because she chooses to see the world around her through a racist lens, and not in a light way, but in a big way.
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Everything is racist
Later, when the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl in overtime against the San Francisco 49ers, Mrs. Abdullah wrote:
“Why do I feel like this is a right-wing, white supremacist conspiracy?!?!”
My guess is that he didn’t watch the game or follow the football. The San Francisco 49ers, despite being impressive in that they were able to force the Chiefs into overtime, threw away the Super Bowl due to a poorly executed missed field goal by Jake Moody.
In another post on X, he wrote:
“People think they’re attacking me by asking me why I think everything is racist…I’m not offended. Pretty much everything is racist.”
There you have it, folks. Pretty much everything is racist!
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Bizarre political science
To be fair to Ms. Abdullah, she is not the first in academia to argue that Swifties are inherently racist. In 2021, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute held a conference examining the “whiteness” of Ms. Swift’s fan base.
Institute ethnomusicologist Kate Galloway said of the conference:
“In addition to looking at how he addresses gender and age and maturity, some scholars are really engaging with white politics and how that plays out in his fandom.”
Imagine for a moment if a wealthy institution of higher education organized a conference to examine the “blackness” of Beyonce fans and how the “politics of blackness” plays out in her fandom. It would rightly cause controversy because it is ridiculous, just as the study of Taylor Swift’s white fan base is ridiculous.
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The truth is that colleges and universities have filled their faculties with ideologues determined to push their poison on young minds who pay prize money to be indoctrinated rather than educated. Ms. Abdullah, who self-proclaims on her profile
“The point is this…When fake journalists from right-wing media outlets turn tweets into news, they spur actual violent responses from their idiotic, delusional white followers. #TaylorSwiftHasSomeRacistFans #DoublingDown”
The tweets are news because of his position in higher education, and here’s the thing… he wanted it to be news, which is why he wrote it. There’s a Taylor Swift song that she would identify with, given her propensity to hate those who don’t look like her; she should check it out. #Haters gonna hate.
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