by Meriadoc

Across the continent, we are in the middle of an exciting African boom and a technological and leadership renaissance of sorts, led by the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the formerly colonized and enslaved. Waterfalls and mountains and majestic animals do not represent a full picture of our homelands.

Swift's music is entertaining for many. She should absolutely be able to use any location as a backdrop. But she packages our continent as the backdrop for her romantic songs devoid of any African person or storyline, and she sets the video in a time when the people depicted by Swift and her co-stars killed, dehumanized and traumatized millions of Africans. That is beyond problematic.

I was pretty appalled that she decided to make a video in Africa and not include any black people, but then seeing that she made a fucking colonial fantasy brings it up a notch. Astoundingly tone-deaf.