Taylor Swift Declares Juneteenth a National Holiday for Her Employees
Taylor Swift is voicing her support for making Juneteenth a national holiday, and she's starting with her own business as a motivation for change.
On Friday, the songstress announced on Instagram that she would be giving her entire team the day off, and shared a video from The Root, which explains why June 19 (the day slavery ended in America) should be celebrated as a national holiday.
"Personally, I’ve made the decision to give all of my employees June 19th off in honor of Freedom Day from now on, and to continue to educate myself on the history that brought us to this present moment," she said in the caption, adding that she will be using the time to reflect on current events.
"For my family, everything that has transpired recently gives us an opportunity to reflect, listen, and reprogram any part of our lives that hasn’t been loudly and ferociously anti-racist, and to never let privilege lie dormant when it could be used to stand up for what’s right."
In recent weeks, Taylor has been an active ally for the Black Lives Matter movement. After accusing President Trump of "stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism" amid the George Floyd protests, Swift continued to use her voice for change, and called for the removal of racist statues in her home state of Tennessee across her social media channels.
"As a Tennessean, it makes me sick that there are monuments standing in our state that celebrate racist historical figures who did evil things," she wrote on Friday (June 12). "Edward Carmack and Nathan Bedford Forrest were DESPICABLE figures in our state history and should be treated as such."
A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Jun 12, 2020 at 1:01pm PDT
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"Taking down statues isn't going to fix centuries of systemic oppression, violence and hatred that black people have had to endure but it might bring us one small step closer to making ALL Tennesseans and visitors to our state feel safe — not just the white ones," she wrote. "I'm asking the Capitol Commission and the Tennessee Historical Commission to please consider the implications of how hurtful it would be to continue fighting for these monuments."
Swift concluded, "When you fight to honor racists, you show black Tennesseans and all of their allies where you stand, and you continue this cycle of hurt. You can’t change history, but you can change this."
