Taylor Swift is being accused of perpetuating racial stereotypes

Taylor Swift is being accused of perpetuating racial stereotypes, but just how fair are those allegations?

The 24 year old singer released a music video for her latest single "Shake It Off" on Monday, in which Swift makes herself the butt of the joke during various dances like ballet and hip hop, and it's butts that are causing some to say the video is offensive.

In one section of the video, Swift stands among a number of dancers who are twerking. This led to rapper Earl Sweatshirt to tweet, "Perpetuating black stereotypes to the same demographic of white girls who hide their prejudice by proclaiming their love of the culture."

But it's his first tweet that is probably even more interesting. He posted,"Haven't watched the Taylor Swift video and I don't need to watch it to tell you that it's inherently offensive and ultimately harmful."

Maybe he should have watched it before accusing someone of being racist. The New York Times' Brian Seibert wrote, "[If] Earl Sweatshirt had bothered to watch the video before commenting, he might have noticed the carefully placed black faces among the cheerleaders, the contemporary dancers and the regular people, and also the trashy white women among the twerkers. For him to have accused Ms. Swift of racism without watching the video is as unjust as if she had accused him of misogyny without first listening to his tracks."

The only moment in the entire video where the dancers aren't a mix of races is the ballet dance, so if you have to force a race argument, that's it. The joke of "Shake It Off" has nothing to do with race, it's that no matter what Swift does, she always catches flack.

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