Is Taylor Swift's New Song, "Shake it Off" Racist?

Sure, it's catchy and definitely NOT country, but is it racist?

I can see that the aim of this music video is to show different forms of dance - ballet, modern dance, breakdancing, and twerking - but the way in which it is presented is somewhat troubling.

The disembodied black woman bottom twerking in the camera is what really made me uncomfortable. In a society where women of color are fetishized and over-sexualized, even from a very young age, showing a woman's rear end and not showing her face treats her like a prop in the video, instead of a dancer. Consider how the ballet dancers are filmed - their faces are all clearly visible in nearly every shot.

Following that, Swift crawls under a row of twerking butts, her eyes wide in wonderment. Seriously?

Racism is not always overt and obvious - just like misogyny, it is cloaked in normality and stereotypes. Racism isn't always KKK members burning a cross in your front yard (though this past week in Ferguson, it has been), it can be perpetuating harmful behavior in media. This gets tricky to point out, as somehow in our society getting called out for being racist is somehow worse than BEING racist. The director of the video already came out and said that it was intended to be "massively inclusive" and not in any way racist.

Well, that's the thing with good intentions - the road to hell is paved with them.

What many people refuse to consider is how white artists are treated compared to artists of color. People laugh, roll their eyes, or cheer for diversity when Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus include disembodied black behinds, but if Nicky Minaj has butts in her video, then she is reviled for being "ghetto" or "trashy."

If you can perform some facet of a culture and not get destroyed over it, which the members of that culture cannot, then you are appropriating that culture, and you should stop immediately.

I'm positive that the director, and even Taylor Swift herself, did not intend there to be racist elements in the video. They thought they were being inclusive and decidedly not racist, but they made choices to present disembodied, faceless parts, and those choices are a result of a life lived in a society where objectification and fetishization of women of color is not only accepted, but celebrated as proof we live in a post-racial society.

Here's a hint - we do NOT live in a post racial society. Our actions have consequences - and in Swift's case, those consequences are reaffirming the sexualization of black women.