If Britney Spears fans have their way, there will soon be nearly three dozen statues of the singer all around her home state of Louisiana! In the wake of George Floyd‘s death and the strong presence of the Black Lives Matter movement, one supporter of the 38-year-old “…Baby One More Time” crooner started a petition on Change.org to replace all the Confederate statues with statues of her and it has already reached a total of 14,000 signatures – just 1,000 away from its goal of 15,000.
The creator of the petition, Kassie Thibodeaux, is asking Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards as well as Bill Cassidy, Rep. Cedric Richmond and the Louisiana State Senate and House to “do the right thing: Replace the Confederate statues with an actual louisiana hero and influencial human being, Britney Spears” in writing and since the petition is clearly being backed by thousands of fans, the request is getting a lot of attention!
The petition comes after some states have been taking down some statues of individuals and symbols that seem to have ties to “white supremacy” after Floyd’s death. Other similar statues that still stand across the nation have been vandalized by protesters either by being toppled and/or by being written on. Messages and phrases about black lives and justice can be seen on many of them and it’s causing some states to spend money to replace them.
Taylor Swift, 30, is one celebrity who recently urged her home state of Tennessee to take down some of the “racist” statues that are connected to the Confederacy. She took to social media to share a lengthy message explaining her reasons for the request and admitted the statues. which include some for former Tennessee Senator Edward Carmack and Confederate Army General Nathan Bedford Forrest, make her “sick.” “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 before admitting real change starts with small steps.
“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,” she continued. “We need to retroactively change the status of people who perpetuated hideous patterns of racism from ‘heroes’ to ‘villains.’ And villains don’t deserve statues.”