Almost ten years ago, Taylor Swift and Kanye West became an item of history when he stormed the stage at MTV’s Video Music Awards show during Swift’s acceptance speech for video of the year.

She was 19-years-old, a rising star, and somewhat fragile.

West was still on the incline, but also beginning the process of losing his damn mind, spectacularly, publicly, without remorse.

If you would have told me back then that today I would call Taylor Swift a semi-woke woman and Kanye West a sleepwalking drone for right-wing communication specialists I would have offered you a laxative, tea, and a couch.

But here we are.

If you don’t know, Swift has come out (finally) as a political person this week. The country music singer turned pop megastar came out as….get ready for this….a Democrat. It was as shocking to me as it was to her own tribe.

The headline in one Reddit forum said it all: “Taylor Swift comes out as a raging, SJW.”

For the uninitiated, SJW means social justice warrior” is a taunt originating in gamer culture thrown at young women who fail to passively suffer sexual harassment. Today it’s the go-to power vanquishing word for impotent white men who want to summarily discount calls for justice from unwhite, unmale human beings.

The Daily Stormer surely wasn’t happy with Swift. Their longstanding portrayal of her as their “Aryan Goddess” died in an instant. Now she is a traitor against their fantasies, one of those women.

Maybe you’re not surprised by any of this. I was because I suspected all along that the reason Swift resisted political talk thatause she was secretly a Tennessee Republican who understood the math of saying so publicly. I was wrong. Obviously.

Swift would have been given brownies for merely telling her fans to get out and vote without adding any spice to the statement, but her statement reads like so much more.

Her Instagram post touched on “systemic racism,” the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, domestic violence, stalking, date rape, anti-gay discrimination in public spaces, and marriage equality.

A social justice warrior indeed.

She said: “In the past, I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.

My favorite part is that she ended her post with the thing every organizer knows is important: a call to action and a time-limited goal:

So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first, you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting! 🗳😃🌈

The sad counter to Swift’s unlikely rise to White Ally status is West’s sad decline into sunken servitude.

His recent meltdown after performing on Saturday Night Live is just another episode of his overtired campaign to be relevant by any means necessary.

He played the Black conservative novelty card which is to claim mental independence and personal emancipation from the allegedly slavish thought policing by other blacks who are just too owned by left-wing plantation Masters to see the brilliance of stubbornly wearing the red MAGA hat with pride.

That type of apple polishing makes stars of black people. There is nothing more perfectly produced in white supremacist laboratories than the self-hating, self-destroying Negro, and every year a new model comes along like the next iPhone.

What once was Larry Elder’s analog providence has now become a high-wage, high-growth telecommuniting occupation for a new generation of rent-seeking black tools.

Candace Owens, for one, was the first to applaud West’s red hat conversion. You don’t know who she is, right? Well, check, she’s black and famous for being the sharp tongue photogenic handmaid of ultra-right-wing causes, just dying to become that cause’s Aunt Lydia.

Her response to Swift’s new political voice was to say Swift is using “black people and minorities as pawns to brainwash people into doing their [liberals] bidding.”

It’s a mixed-up world when I side with the bluest eye against the family. It’s a challenge to my rigid racial identity and an uncomfortable one at that.

Race politics 101 should compel me to savage Swift for her opportunism and her lurch toward political correctness, and also to defend West for his somewhat misunderstood Black genius, but it’s not going to happen. I can’t.

I return to Malcolm X on this one. He famously said: “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

The truth is we must ignore the red hat monkey show and focus on the high stakes of our upcoming elections. Vote my people, no matter who tells you to do it.

Chris Stewart is the Chief Executive Officer of Education Post, a media project of the Results in Education Foundation. He is a lifelong activist and 20-year supporter of nonprofit and education-related causes. Stewart has served as the director of outreach and external affairs for Education Post, the executive director of the African American Leadership Forum (AALF), and an elected member of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.

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