Taylor Swift has got the 1830s all wrong

Disney by Emily Ireland, University of Liverpool Taylor Swift has become incredibly popular as a documenter of her dating history. But in her new album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, she tries her hand at writing about actual history. In the second verse of “I Hate it Here” (track 23 on the mammoth 31-track anthology version of the album), Swift sings about playing a game that involves selecting a past decade to live in instead of the present. I’d say the 1830s but without all the racists And getting married off for the highest bid The internet was quick to criticize the line, arguing that Swift’s vague reference to “all the racists” suggests a lack of reflection on the historical injustices experienced by people of color throughout history. Many saw it as a minimization of the atrocities of the era of slavery. They also pointed out that it would be impossible to remove “all the racists” from the 1830s as if it were a case of removing a few bad apples from a barrel. Racism was enmeshed into the fabric of 19th-century society in Britain and the US. The 1830s without racism is what some might call a blank slate. Those...