As someone who lives well outside of the BeyHive, it’s just always intrigued me what about celebrity, and specifically Beyoncé’s, that attracts so many people and people so passionate.  When she performed “Flawless” the word “FEMINIST” as a sign as big as the stage was illuminated and Nigerian writer Chimimanda Adiche provided a voice-over from her essay “Why We Should All Be Feminists.”  Mostly what fueled this curiosity about Beyoncé’s celebrity isn’t that people are talking about it, but it is often who is saying what about it.  For the first time in my recollection, I saw the black public intellectuals of the day proceeding to create the meaning out of her artwork, and begin the process of parsing lyrics and images all across the span of black consciousness.

Making Meaning ex-celebritas

Celebrities from time immemorial function as the target of unadulterated glorification to unmitigated hate.  And this celebrity is not relegated to the world of art–music, literary or visual–often times its in the political realm (think Barack Obama, to Hillary Clinton, to Donald Trump and even other international leaders), sports figures or even when it comes to celebrity preachers to prominent activists.  In the case of Beyoncé, her celebrity has transcended some of the realness that many of our other celebrities have.  In the way that Oprah, and the behemoth that Harpo Studios became, was someone we invited into our living rooms for 25 years, or even Barack and Michelle Obama truly have embodied what it means to be America’s First Family, Beyoncé is not real like that.  Beyoncé is tangibly intangible.  She inhabits what postmodernity would call a type of hyperreality existing beyond our reach in many ways.  She rarely gives interviews and rarely offers commentary in the way that many other artists have chosen to wade into the political arena or take a stand for various causes.

The phrase of ex-celebritas is a play on the theological notion that tribal deity YHWH (Yahweh/Jehovah) of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament created the world ex nihiloor “out of nothing.”  In the sense, much of God’s sovereignty is attributed to the idea that meaning was made out of nothing.  Applying that same knowledge, as a society we create meaning out of celebrity.  And as we do that, we ascribe meaning to people, places and things that may not have endeavored to have such meaning.  As two of my blog essays back-to-back focus around the image of Beyoncé, a first ever, it’s not hard to automatically see that in turn we ascribe meaning to the individual celebrity too.  It’s as if there is a reciprocal dance between the two poles of creation and projection in which one party might not be a participating member.

When clergy of the early Church, prior to the fourth century, supported the creation of icons, it was literally artists and patrons of the church creating the holy in their own image and then in turn giving meaning to that icon.  The finished artwork had zero agency in what it was fashioned to look like, and then had to be subjected to the interpretation of others.

In that way, Beyoncé is an icon.

The historical genesis of an icon is inherently theological and of Greek origin.  Icons at the beginning of the first millennium of the Common Era were considered holy images either as a painting or wooden images.   So yes, as Beyoncé’s celebrity has risen to that of an icon, it is accompanied with a particular type of sacredness.  Celebrity, as a concept, usually invokes meaning that is secular, but for Beyoncé, her image has become sacred for many–especially black women.  It should come to no shock to anyone as to why she is iconic to so many black women.  One might would have to go back to Diana Ross to find a black woman celebrity who has the wide-reaching appeal of a pop-star outside of the black music world.  This is not to discount musicians like Janet Jackson or Whitney Houston, but beyond the shadow of a doubt, Beyoncé has surpassed these women in many ways.  To put it another way, Beyoncé functions as a text.  Text, as a word, comes from the Latin textere which means to weave.  That suggests that much of who she is and what we say she stands for is in turn personified in who she is.

Canonizing Beyoncé as Sacred Text

The first time I ever entertained the idea of Beyoncé as more than a pop artist was watching the now-canceled Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC on a Saturday morning and I heard the conversation that enthroned her as a feminist.  I remember at the time as I was wrestling with my practical definition of feminism because so much of my conversation with black women were offering such different variations of not just a working definition, but what constituted feminism: who could effectively be called a feminist and what were considered feminist practices. But even more specifically I was hearing a divergence of conversations about black feminism.  Actually, a former student of mine helped me out when she offered up Patricia Hill Collins understanding of having a “unique angle of vision” to suggest that Beyoncé’s entrée into [black] feminism may not, nor is required to look like everyone else.

For me her self-titled album Beyoncé was the marker that put Beyoncé in the stratosphere.  It was an unknown and midnight album drop that immediately got the burgeoning Black Twitter collective further established in its presence online while much of Black America was still reveling in Obama having been re-elected again.  She and her husband, hip hop rapper and mogul Jay-Z, were getting invites to the White House by now.  She was just that big.  That meant that whatever she said or did was worthy of being canonized.  But, ever the smart businesswoman, Beyoncé kept her interviews to a minimum–if any at all–and her pregnancy was all but a private affair even after the birth.  This meant that all the public had was her music–lyrics and music videos.

While Beyoncé’s music is obviously R&B, it’s also pop music.  And pop music usually doesn’t lend itself to grand lyrics or lyrics with deep messaging; it tends to be in relatively surface and spell out exactly what it means.  The depth of hidden meanings rests in sexual innuendoes such as “watermelon” and “cigars on ice” or downright explicit.  Think “surfbort.”  Nevertheless, her lyrics have been parsed by some as if they were found on the Dead Sea Scrolls and contained the key to unlock ancient lost languages.  And it doesn’t stop there.  The music videos themselves are part of the sacred text, where everything is thought to have a hidden meaning that must be unlocked.

“Y’all haters corny with that Illuminati mess”

The fact that so many people think that Beyoncé is part of the Illuminati has led to her actually incorporating a response to that in her lyrics.  A YouTube search would prove that there are no limits to those who operate in the world of conspiracy theories and people who have too much time on their hands.  Aside from claims of being in the Illuminati, there are YouTubers who have called her an agent of Satan.  Not metaphorically, but literally.  While I’m sure those that have created videos as such would never refer to Beyoncé as “sacred” anything, I would argue that they see her as a text of sorts, and one in which they have ascribed meaning.  In the way that some may see her as a black feminist, others see her as part of the Illuminati and a Satan worshipper.  Yet the Hoteps see her as anOshun, an orisha from Yoruba culture. Go figure.

Harris-Perry, now in a role as an editor at Ellemagazine, published a call-and-response dialectic that I think highlights to just what level Beyoncé operates as a sacred text for so many people, with so many unique angles of vision.  Even if you don’t agree with the meaning being made, one has to admit and acknowledge that serious thought and more so, serious devotion has been given to this.  It is cult-like.  Cultic practices, even with their negative connotation, do appropriately describe what often functions as a religious following.  In the way that hip hop teens and children of the 90s quote Tupac and Biggie with a cultic religiosity, there is a new generation of women of all ages who will quote Beyoncé for years to come.  And even more so, reference her videos.

The early years of Beyoncé with Destiny’s Child produced music videos at times only two steps removed of the days of the video vixens that populated the majority of hip hop videos of the 1990s and early 2000s.  And again, as she moved into a solo act, we began to see her, in effect, grow up and mature into an adult.  An adult with sensitivities and proclivities appropriate for her age.  We saw progression.  However, with rappers reaching middle age, some artists resist the notion of evolution, still trying to hold fast to their so-called “glory days.”  Certainly after her marriage to Jay-Z, her pregnancy and perhaps just the reality of just being over 30 years old, her videos took on distinctive artistic qualities.  It was clear that these music videos were not meant to be seen as part of the same textural fabric as videos produced by Rihanna, Keyshia Cole and whatever else the cadre of urban hip hop has devolved to with the likes of Future, the Migos, 2 Chainz and Fetty Wap forming the group of Poor Unfortunate Souls from Ursula’s garden in Disney’s The Little Mermaid.  From her fashion choices, to the choreography, to the way she wears her hair and even the costumes and design of the backup dancers all form text the same way one looks at sentence structure–complex sentences to simple ones–from parallel structure to verb tense to help form an image of the author who’s composed it.

In theological circles, the science of exegesis is far from perfect and more often than not one performs eisegesis.  Ex- being the prefix for “out of” in this case, meaning what does one “pull out of” the text.  The opposite being what is being read into the text.  What put me at odds with a few professors in seminary was my proclivity to stand “in front” of the text and provide what’s called a reader’s response to the text.  I’m very much okay and interested in what is being read into the text because we are the sum total of our experiences and to act as if we can so easily divorce ourselves from them in order to give a so-called pure interpretation is naive.  Instead, I’d rather admit the bias up front and still offer a transparent opinion.  So when it comes to the best of what one can even assume as pure in this context, is what what is known as the author’s intent: in what way did the creator of the text intend for the text to be interpreted.

Icons and Iconoclasm

I’ll admit, up until this point in the essay I’ve been trying to keep my bias at bay, and I’m sure I’ve not done such a good job, but in all intellectual transparency I want to admit that I do have one.  Part of the paradox of Beyonce is that her icon status seems to have created a type of bullet-proof veneer that insulates her from criticism.  For quite some time, I find myself interested in critiquing the critical, not simply because I want to disagree with people but partially because I understand that as individuals and as a society we are motivated by a multitude–much of which we fail to recognize or at least admit out loud.  For what it’s worth, I appreciate Harris-Perry saying unabashedly that she’s part of the BeyHive because it contextualizes her response.

Another part of my bias, again in intellectual transparency, is that I’d like to think myself to be an iconoclast–at least one in the historical sense.  In response to the icons that the Church had fashioned in their own image, the Eastern Church (not the Western Church that eventually became the modern day-Roman Catholic church under Constantine) began practicing the physical tearing down and destruction of the holy icons.  For me, I consider this to be deconstructive work that attempts to make meaning of those that make meaning.  In other words what’s driving people to create a sacred text out of Beyoncé.

Finally, what has been a driving force of my bias, wrapped in this particular personage of Beyoncé, is the ways in which I see many people cherry-pick and self-select the Gospel of Beyoncé.  Often times when I hear [legitimate] critiques of hip hop writ large toward black men and it’s prevalent misogyny and mistreatment of women in both lyrics and videos, the sourcing of those texts–lyrics and videos–span the entire career of many of the artists.  However with Beyoncé, it’s as if her first song, video and performance was “Flawless” because that was considered her declaration as a [black] feminist.  As big of an icon as she is, I consider it intellectually irresponsible if those that ascribe meaning gloss over the fact that when she was with Destiny’s Child she was someone who wanted a man to pay her “Bills, Bills, Bills” and presumably she was going to “Cater to [him]” and without a doubt she thought it not robbery to define black masculinity when she said he would be a “Soldier.”

Those songs were my introduction to Beyoncé as a young black male in high school and eventually in college.  And I shall never forget my professor in my Introduction to African American History at Fisk University, declaring from the front of the class that Beyoncé, not Destiny’s Child, was single-handedly setting black women back with the song “Cater to You.”  Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but feel excluded from the “soldier”-motif created simply because I was a college student, not the token roughneck of the ‘hood.  In much the same way that feminist theologians reject Pauline passages of 1 Corinthians because Paul doesn’t affirm women preachers, and the way that black liberation theology rejects Paul’s letter to Philemon considering the enslaved man Onesimus or the haustafeln passages throughout the New Testament epistles because of their reference to “slaves obey your masters,” I think its perfectly fine for us to not hold Beyoncé to old lyrics, but I think we have to acknowledge that it’s part of the corpus of her text.  By most accounts, we’ve shuffled off this proto-Beyoncé in favor of a deutero-Beyoncé in which we apply reader-response eisegetical techniques for the sake of society’s meaning making.

Notwithstanding white gaze toward all things Beyoncé, I am interested in the narrative that doesn’t emerge as the dominant narrative.  I wrote about this to some extentlabeling part of that narrative being shaped by the black syndicate media in my previous blog essay about her and Kendrick Lamar.  Let me say up front, I’m not interesting in hearing black men co-sign together in favor of mounting some anti-Beyoncé campaign for the sake of retreading white masculinity blowhards, but rather the notion that perhaps Beyoncé’s angle of vision is cast more toward capitalism than activism.  Again, my bias is heavy when it comes to conversations around capitalism and that’s often informed by my personal politics.  At what point does the dominant narrative allow questions around the way that we make all things fit into a positive narrative around Beyoncé and instead offer serious criticism to the merchandise that capitalized on the perceived activism around the “Formation” music video and Super Bowl performance; the exorbitant prices of ticket sales for her world tour; the Ivy Park line of clothes not including plus-sizes.  These are all minority reports that get shoved into the same dust-bin of forgetfulness of proto-Beyoncé.

Just a quick walk into any Roman Catholic church building and any non-Roman Catholic church building, one immediately sees the images of the sacred and the holy fall away.  In most modern megachurches, at most one singular cross may hang from the center and the brilliant stage lights cast beams onto blank pulpits and altars, walls and windows in which the parishioners are free to project their own meaning.  While it was a breaking away from what was to become the state-corrupted and sponsored Roman Catholic church, it was also a breaking away from tradition and ultimately spawned many other reformations itself.  The creation of each new denomination and tradition–Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist–all let us know that there is room in which a multiplicity of meanings can be had.   When Martin Luther tacked his 95 critiques on the church door at Wittenburg, and it was the beginning of an iconoclastic movement.  This breaking away is more commonly referred to as the Protestant Reformation.

The Beyoncé Re-“Formation”

I paid $17.99 for the Lemonade album on iTunes because I refuse to get Tidal for a plethora of reasons.  And this was my first ever Beyoncé album or track purchase.  I bought it because I saw it as engaging contemporary culture.  And I must say, even from a musical point of view, I was quite pleased with what I heard.  I felt it showed the broad range of Beyoncé’s vocals as well as her choreographic skills.

However, it was sensory overload.

If you read that to mean overkill, then allow me to expound because that’s certainly not what I mean.  Overload in the sense that there was no rest for the weary; the metaphorical imagery was legion.  Having not just a theological, but a God-centered spiritual approach to the album, I don’t at all feel qualified to offer what would look like a comprehensive response to everythingthat transpired in the midst of the 65 minute visual album not even one week after its release.  In the video, there were interludes that weren’t included in the tracks, where Beyoncé through voice-over intoned words that vacillated between prayers of supplication to jeremiads and laments all the way to a theology of anger and frustration displayed as prose that had mystical and transcendent qualities that surpassed orthodox spirituality.

I personally can’t answer why Beyoncé is just that important to halt just about every news story about Prince’s death which was a pretty damn big deal.  But let’s magnify this a bit: the typical news cycle has shrunk to about 7 days, and Lemonade didn’t even give the death of Prince the opportunity to last a full news cycle.  This leads me to believe that within a week’s time, the country will have moved on beyond this.  In fact, as I type this, it’s an election night–and a deciding night in which Bernie Sanders will undoubtedly watch the nomination slip from his fingers permanently, and the GOP will effectively haveto have a contested convention in order to prevent Trump from being the nominee.  Even as I conclude this blog essay, I’ve turned away from the immediate topic at hand: the Gospel According to Beyoncé.

This gospel message that society has projected onto Beyoncé–made in our own image–is a message we have made her have.  I’d rather us own the fact that we culturally make meaning and ascribe to persons and ideas and sometimes even physical artifacts like buildings, paintings and sculptures.  Perhaps I’m being repetitive at this point, but admittedly no more repetitive that “I slay/okay.”  Projecting meaning, whatever meaning that is, onto Beyoncé is fine, she’s a celebrity, an icon, but we ought not be pedantic enough to release ourselves from responsibility of that meaning and in turn beatify her as though these thoughts, these notions, these meaningsfrom the Almighty and Sovereign Beyoncé.

My hope is that in the cobbling together of this gospel sacred text, this re-“formation” of Beyoncé, that we put together a complete text.  One that includes the frayed edges, the blended fabrics and even the attempts to weave pieces together that we know weren’t originally intended to be together, but it works together for the good of someone who needs disparate parts to make a whole.  I’m not interested in a sanitized Beyoncé; one that erases her work with Destiny’s Child in favor of someone who baptized in the waters of cause célèbre.

What can’t be taken away from Beyoncé is that she has empowered a third-wave of feminism–especially black feminists and womanists–with a new text from which to draw a type of femignosis in which to create meaning.  She also has required us to rethink the ways in which we see the production of black music–as entertainment or activism, and she certainly falls in the Oprah category in which we become free to question the ways in which blackness requires a certain type of aesthetic when it comes to what do you do for the race.  Remember in 2012 when Harry Belafonte openly questioned the motives of both Jay-Z and Beyoncé and Hova actually dropped a diss lyric against Belafonte?

As I did read through the call-and-response dialogue from Elle, one male college students notes that the visual album made his girlfriend cry and that was the first time he had seen her cry.  And I get that.  I’m not interested in disconnecting or demystifying the possibility of emotional or intellectual liberation that may come as a result of performing a type of lectio divina around this last project, but ultimately I believe that it’s more about the individual illuminating their own liberation.  But perhaps the woven text(ure) of Beyoncé is just the blank canvass in which liberation is possible.

If nothing else, Beyoncé lets us know that there can me more than meets the eye when a bottle of hot sauce can really be Hot Sauce. Swag.

The post Made in Our Own Image: The Gospel According to Beyoncé appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I’m not even sure if the phrase “the black blogosphere” is appropriate anymore to denote that which is the conglomerate of black social media commentary, Black Twitter, news websites dedicated to African American culture (think HuffPo Black and NBCBlk as well as The Root or The Grio) as well as independent websites (think For Harriet and Very Smart Brothers).  For the sake of this conversation, I’d like to call this black syndicate media.   This is to differentiate it from American mainstream media (cable news outlets, as well as the big three networks of CBS, ABC and NBC).  In much the same way that American mainstream media generally focuses on one particular angle to tell the same story without much variation, the black syndicate media often does the same.   While it may be counter to what American mainstream media in very apparent ways, the same group ethos emerges along with a dominant narrative and thereby a singular group conscience.  If you also read groupthink in the midst of that, you would be correct.  Such is the narrative around Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar.

I don’t want to take up time, space and words rehashing the litany of back and forth critique and responses on the two, but it is worth revisiting the dots I’ve connected from the moment that Beyonce released her single “Formation” until the subsequent days in which Kendrick Lamar performed the mashup of “The Blacker the Berry” and “Alright” from his album To Pimp a Butterfly.  The beginning dot for me was a 3 hour conversation with one of my best friends two days after “Formation” dropped and already after the Super Bowl halftime show.

While Black Twitter was beside itself, I dropped my obligatory tweets but was trying to focus on reflection rather than reaction when it came to my thoughts on “Formation.”  My friend called just in general and he and I eventually discussed–at length–the music video.  He had connected many pieces of southern culture that he recognized that I just didn’t see.  Partly because of my own biases about the South (that’s for another blog), the fact that I’m from Chicago and also that I personally, don’t consider New Orleans to be the South culturally–an argument he didn’t buy based on his visits, despite the fact that I’ve lived there for a combined six-and-a-half years and have very close family that live all throughout south central and south eastern Louisiana.   It was the first moment in which I offered up criticism of “Formation.”

By the next day, as the euphoria of the video had dampened, there were legitimate and weighty think-pieces coming from New Orleans natives flat out accusing Beyonce of cultural appropriation not just of New Orleans, but specifically of the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina.  It was at that moment I realized that some of those images were triggers for me inasmuch as it did force me to mildly relive the awesome tragedy that had befell the city.  If my Facebook timeline of New Orleans natives reposting those contrary think-pieces were any indication of the whole, it was clear not every black person was 100% ecstatic about “Formation.”

While I was fine with the bits of what could be misconstrued as cultural appropriation, I was having legitimate problems with the uninterpreted images she displayed.  While the American Negro gothic on the front porch to the antebellum costumes inside the house were presumable nods to Southern culture,  the B-roll images of New Orleans, an empty swimming pool and a parking lot didn’t exactly scream southern anything to me.  Much less revolutionary.

Beyonce was catapulted into black revolutionary status (and I’m still trying to figure out what qualifies one as such) following her Super Bowl performance specifically.  The back-up dancers came out in what was to be perceived as Black Panther-esque fashion, and this was supported by the fact the dancers took a post-performance picture that made it to the internet that was clearly meant to invoke the Black Panther Party and the likes of Rudy Giuliani saw it as a nod to the Black Panthers and therefore Beyonce was suddenly anti-police.  Notwithstanding the gaze of white onlookers into a culture they know nothing about nor desire to, Beyonce had single-handedly captured the imagination of black feminism, black womanism, black youth, black radicals and millions others under the umbrella of commercial pop culture.

Many of those in black syndicate media dubbed this the “Blackest Black History Month Ever” because of Kendrick Lamar’s performance as the Grammys just this past Monday night.  Suddenly, the immediate comparison of Beyonce and Kendrick’s performances erupted in a fight as to who was more radical than the other.

It was at that moment I wanted to tear my hair out.

This is a silly fight.

I had currently been reading The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race by Willie Jennings and he was making the larger case for the systematic ways in which Europeans created the scale of whiteness by which everything was to be measured.  In the first chapter he historically showed the ways in which indigenous people native to places that were not Europe used the land–the actual physical and geographical land–as the basis for which everything was measured and how essentially Europeans, by taking the land, replaced whiteness with the land.  Ultimately, that also means the basis for identity is shifted.  In much the same way much of African American culture is familiar with the so-called white standard of beauty, that base of whiteness is the rubric by which everything else is measured.   The opening quote at the top of this piece echoes clearly when I watch the ways in which black folks twist and turn in order to shape their own identity as a way to attempt to respond to oppression that is white supremacy.  Jennings also says:

The issue of identity now invokes a universe of modern conceptualities, some of which are respected in academic circles as new healthy convergences of multiple scholarly fields and interests, others of which are denounced as faddism, this is, creating undisciplined anachronisms running roughshod over historical periods and peoples.

I wonder at what point have we, those that participate in the black syndicate media, done nothing more than recreate the system of rhetorical oppression in the ways that we divorce ourselves from discourse on the sake of performing identity politics?

Beyonce and Kendrick don’t need to be compared to one another.  And certainly not on the basis of one being more revolutionary than the other.  For starters, Kendrick is a rapper and the nature of that genre has historically lent itself to being radical and revolutionary in ways that pop-music has not.  Rap has a very long history of being counter culture and pop music is just that: popular music reflecting  the complacency of culture not the dissatisfaction with culture.  Secondly, the body of Kendrick’s music is much more full of cultural criticism and the typical misogyny both of which are a part of the rap genre.  With songs like “Swimming Pools” and “Dying of Thirst” you get both heavy cultural criticism, themes of nihilism as well as the notion of redemption and some theology in the midst (middle of the album, a neighbor has Kendrick and his friends recite a prayer for Christian salvation) not to mention his “Backseat Freestyle” in which he does both cultural criticism and simultaneously makes a nod to his “wifey, girlfriend and mistress.”  Meanwhile Beyonce’s body of work as far as popular songs includes “Bills, Bills, Bills,” “Soldier” and “Cater to You.”

In all fairness, Beyonce has contributed to pop culture in ways that Kendrick has not, and by her being a black woman is revolutionary and radical in its own right.  With catchy pop songs such as “Run the World,” “Love on Top” or “Single Ladies” just to name a few, it is indicative that her star so greatly outshines Kendrick and is more than enough for me to say that it’s not fully fair to compare the two.  Both occupy their own lanes and in their own rights, both are wildly successful.  Personally, I do think that, much like the Washington Post’s Jeff Guo who wrote “Beyoncé waited until black politics was so undeniably commercial that she could make a market out of it,” is correct, but does this create a closed canon on black political and cultural possibilities of an individual or celebrity?  Maybe.  Is Beyonce’s “Formation” a form of black cultural appropriation for the sake of capitalist gain?  Perhaps.

What bothers me the most in the midst of this is the ways in which many of us are doing identity politics.  This way says that because she is Bee-yawn-say then she is above and beyond criticism–and that’s not how this works!  For every criticism that “Formation” was mediocre at best or of lyrics that repeat the words “slay” and “okay” multiple times, there was the counter criticism that Kendrick engages in misogynistic lyrics.  One of the most recent Salon articles, from black syndicate media, pointed this out concerning Kendrick and also brought Kanye’s “Gold Digger” into the foray to discuss the ways that Kendrick is somehow getting a pass for his lyrics while Beyonce is being overly criticized.  In all fairness, if the entire corpus of one’s work is on the table, then so is Beyonce’s work even when she was with Destiny’s Child.  The ways in which she fully engaged in patriarchy were on full display when asking for a man to pay her “Bills,” refashioning the troubling image of black masculinity in “Soldier” and flat out capitulating to men in “Cater to You.”  It’s this type of one-sided discourse that is troubling to me, and I go back and see the words of Willie Jennings reminding me that this is bigger than us.

Much like the American mainstream media, the black syndicate media has a short memory.  We collapse narratives often.  Beyonce and “Formation” exist in a vacuum as if there was not a Beyonce before, and the only way we interpret the present moment is through or current fascination.  Same with Kendrick.  But again, since black syndicate media is a carbon copy of the larger mainstream media, we will move from this moment in the next two weeks or less.  Think-pieces have their place for immediate reaction, but the ways in which we sit and reflect about these things have gone the way of the dodo bird.

Kendrick Lamar did for me in my black maleness what Beyonce seemed to do for many black women.  However, I never saw Kendrick as a savior, I never needed him to be the way others may have (or still) need that image of a powerful black woman who slays her opponents.  But what I did need from Kendrick, I got.  I got someone who proudly spoke of his male body from a place of self-love and self-worth, and not from a place of dominance in which his body was a tool in which to violently oppress other black women.  One of the most powerful lines in hip hop music for me right now is from “The Blacker the Berry” which says “my hair is nappy, his dick is big, his nose is round and wide.”

When have black men had the permission to say that aloud and in public?

In much the same way that black women have found a new liberating voice at this dawn of the 21st century, there are many black men in this country who are are also in-process, if you will, as to figuring out what that looks like for them as well.  Fact of the matter is that the goal posts of blackness seem to change from day to day depending on which think-piece you read or which person on Twitter you follow.  The by-product of moving the goalposts is that those who are doing the moving are exerting their power over others, requiring the rest to go through extreme lengths to make the “goal.”  It also creates a type of identity orthodoxy where in the matter of weeks or months one is forced to rethink and reframe their own identity narrative because the moving of the goalposts require this to be linear work rather than something that is messy and more often than not complicated.  Black Lives Matter and Baltimore mayoral candidate Deray Mckesson was known for his phrase “I love your blackness–and mine,” perhaps as an attempt to acknowledge the ways in which blacknessdoesn’t have to look the same for each person.  As a bit of a rebuttal, I’d proffer that my blackness is complicated, and so is yours.  Sometimes one’s perceived blackness doesn’t operate in a linear way; some times all of the dots actually don’t connect.

Recognizing how heavily I’ve been influenced to move beyond ontological blackness, this particular spat fueled by the black syndicate media is a case-in-point of the problems that exist in the ways that we do blackness.  The way it’s portrayed in the opinion minefield that is Twitter and Facebook, to identify with Beyonce means you are a mindless bot that ignores the ways capitalism feed her pop-culture status, and to identify with Kendrick means you probably harbor Hotepian ideology and have a secret man-crush on Umar Johnson.  Both of which are gross generalizations that ignore the nuances and contextual complexities in which most of us live by.  When we do this in the black syndicate media spaces, it employs the same logic that white conservatives use requiring Muslims to denounce ISIS at every chance they get or the way that blacks in public spaces (from professors on a panel discussion, to black political commentators on the evening cable news channels) are required to denounce anyone from Jeremiah Wright to Louis Farrakhan.

The ways in which we do identity politics, in which we do blackness is most often a response, a reaction even, to the furtive ways in which white supremacy have invaded our everyday lives.  Even to the reality that our use of English as a language of communication is imbued with the sin of white supremacist conceptualization; we use the oppressors language to describe our own oppression.

I write this two weeks after “Formation” debuted and a week after the Grammys where Kendrick performed, and neither of these two are in the headlines even remotely.   I write this still because I believe in reflection, an exercise that I wish more practiced. But much like the dodo bird, resurrection has not come for it and I wonder is that the ultimate fate of intentional reflection.  What does it mean for the spirit and the psyche when every utterance is reactionary?

I feel the need to be bold enough to say that the ways in which we interpret the information disseminated by black syndicate media need to be questioned more heartily.  My ultimate reflection throughout all of this is that the ways in which we do blackness, the essentialized and narrowing qualities thereof, is quickly getting in the way of us being black.   True to my own claim, there may be a beginning dot for this line of reason, but my complicated and complex logic is far from a straight line, it meanders all over the place and I’m unsure of exactly where it ends.  For one to discount my meandering logic and emotions around this because it’s not linear would be to not allow room for complexities and complications in the midst of being human; can people not evolve?

I long for the day in which we will not be judged by the content of our Twitter retweets and Facebook likes, but rather by the quality of our critical thinking.   Alas, that day may be farther off than we’d like it to be.

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Most commonly recognized as the quintessential crossover darling and purveyor of catchy pop-music and dance routines, this year Beyoncé decided to extol the wonders of her Blackness by releasing a song and video, and performing a SB50 set, that’s undeniably Black without the burden of respectability, Single Lady-friendly hand gestures, or Flawless soundbites preferred by the mainstream; the better for them to thrust and sing to, or co-opt as part of their YouTube reenactments or cabaret acts. I mean, this go-round, Beyonce went balls to the wall, and described herself as a Texas bama who loves to hoard hot sauce in her handbag, and white folks are like, ‘Quoi? What does any of this even mean?’

I don’t want to make this solely about Formation—(more than enough essays have been cranked through the pipeline already)—as much as I mean for this to be about the push-back against Black self-love and representation, but the video and song are decidedly political (for Beyoncé); and much of the Melina Matsoukas-directed offering seems to be a love letter of sorts to New Orleans and the Black southern aesthetic often derided by the mainstream (when they aren’t pilfering style and music trends from it), featuring clips of New Orleans bounce culture; Beyoncé and her dancers (all Black women) strolling; the pop star singing about the love she has for her baby’s afro and Negro noses with ‘Jackson 5 nostrils’; voice-overs by New Orleans-born comic and rap artist Messy Mya (who was shot and killed in 2010) and ‘Queen of Bounce’ Big Freedia; Beyoncé draped atop a New Orleans police car submerging herself underwater over voice clips about Hurricane Katrina; graffiti that reads “Stop Shooting Us”; and a Black little boy in a hoodie, dancing in front of a white police squad while they stand with their hands up.

Couple the video’s anti-police violence stance with Beyoncé and her dancers coming out during the SB50 Halftime show dressed in Black, at attention in an X formation, in homage to Michael Jackson, the Black Panthers, and Malcolm X, and a deluge of White tears flowed forth like a torrential downpour. Beyoncé, who said her latest effort is meant to make people feel proud of and have love for themselves, was suddenly evading the White Gaze instead of performing for it. And now white people are pissed, don’t know what to do with this latest incarnation of Beyoncé, and so have called for her head on a platter.

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I had pretty much forgotten about that whole story until today when I ran into a piece about these three individuals who ran a non-profits that were  to be servicing patients with cancer.

Four key organizations worked together to collect millions of dollars over the years which was supposed to go to research and treatment for cancer patients and in particular children battling cancer. Real Salt of the earth people……smh….

Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, Children’s Cancer Fund of America and The Breast Cancer Society

Children’s Cancer Fund of America and Rose Perkins agreed to entry of a judgment for $30,079,821, the amount that consumers donated to Children’s Cancer Fund between 2008 and 2012. The judgment against Children’s Cancer Fund will be partially satisfied by payment of the proceeds of the liquidation of all its assets by a receiver. In addition, the receiver will dissolve the corporate existence of Children’s Cancer Fund.The judgment against Perkins will be suspended based upon her documented inability to pay.

Breast Cancer Society agreed to entry of a judgment for $65,564,360, the amount consumers donated to it between 2008 and 2012. […] In a separate order, Reynolds, II also agreed to a $65,564,360, judgment for the injury caused by the corporation he controlled, but that judgment will be suspended because of his limited ability to pay, upon payment of $75,000.

In a separate settlement, the former Cancer Support Services president and chief financial officer of Cancer Fund, Kyle Effler, agreed to entry of a $41,152,231 judgment, the amount that consumers donated to Cancer Support Services between 2008 and 2012. That judgment will be suspended following a payment of $60,000.

Knoxville News Sentinel 

Things like hospice care and transportation to and from Chemotherapy treatments and medications were some of the ways the funds from this organization were supposed to be used.

Instead the organization was in fact a complete sham and was set up family members with cushy jobs while spending the proceeds from the donations on trips to Disney, Concerts, Jet Ski Trips and dating site memberships.

In fact it is alleged that 85% of the donations received by these charities went to the charities themselves, their families and friends-employed by the charity and professional fundraisers again friends of the organizations so basically they just sprinkled the money all over themselves. The period that is being brought forth in the complaint filed by the FTC is filing suit along with numerous other states says that these SCAMS brought in over $187 Million dollars.

Ease Up on Jay-Z and Beyonce

Maybe Jay-Z and Beyonce don’t have a massive trust and foundation set up administering funding on a regular to well known organizations. Maybe they don’t publicize every instance that they give for whatever reason.  Screaming on them for not giving enough, or to the right places right now seems like a real hollow argument given the story just mentioned.

Those that are so critical of their “charitable” giving to the people of Ferguson and Baltimore – are you going to be so critical of these people who stole money earmarked for children who were dying?

Probably not because you know….  #whiteliesmatter

The post Jay-Z and Beyonce Aint The Problem, Charity Ripoffs Are appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Yonce’s all on Bill O’Reilly’s mouth like liquor. At least it was a few weeks ago when O’Reilly, the notorious Fox News political commentator, yet again took up the task of publicly attacking Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Time Magazine’s Most Influential Person. He points to her groundbreaking latest album, Beyoncé, as to why her Knowles-Carter isn’t “influential.” Centering his critique on songs like “Partition,” O’Reilly completely ignores other tracks like, “Heaven,” which some have speculated alludes to the pain of the pop superstar’s miscarriage. O’Reilly decided to put on his mask of “concern” for Black folks to hide his disdain for Black women. Under this mask, Beyoncé becomes the spokesperson for the Black community and O’Reilly gets to ignore how her artistry nods to the fact that Black women miscarry at a higher rate than other women and the overall Black genius of her album.

After the attack on his own show, O’Reilly went on to visit David Letterman maintaining his argument that, “Right now, in the African American community, 72% of babies are born out of wedlock. Back when Motown was hot, in the 60s, it was like 10 or 12 percent. So what we’re seeing then is a deleterious effect on American society.” I’m sure O’Reilly conveniently left out the fact that when “Motown was hot” (when did it cool down?) Black women didn’t have the right to vote, couldn’t access the same educational resources as white folks and were busy being the backbone of a civil rights movement. There were also different cultural norms in the 60’s that are no longer relevant today. Even still, perhaps Black women were exhausted and not really in the mood for their Freakum Dress. Or, perhaps O’Reilly’s data is manipulated and divorced from the reality of the periods referenced.

There is often very little attention paid in mainstream media white men’s assaults on Black women. Or when a group of white men sit together to discuss Black women’s bodies. White men need to understand the sense of entitlement associated with consuming and commenting on Black women’s bodies. Instead, we can focus our attention and collectively listen to Black women’s experiences. Last week, Drexel University put together a panel where Black women discussed Black women, sexuality, beauty and so much more. With all the speculation on Beyoncé as spokesperson for Black women, Treva Lindsey noted, “Beyoncé had so much parental care, nurturing, and investment so many Black girls are not afforded.” Followed up by Dr. Brittany Cooper arguing, “I don’t know that there’s the same [sexual] freedom when we talk about this for unmarried [Black] women.” Despite the fact Beyoncé is a married mother of one and respectability politics are alive and well, her sexuality is still policed and condemned. This begs the question: if this is how Black women with the power of celebrity are treated, what does this tell us about how Black women are generally treated?

I have little interest in the fact that Bill O’Reilly’s fascination with pregnancy doesn’t begin or end with Beyoncé—the women he sexually harassed over a decade ago volunteers at Planned Parenthood. I’m interested in the long history of white men making up imaginary stories about and harassing Black women. I’m interested in the fact most of the public debate is centered on Beyoncé instead of the entitlement of white men or issues impacting Black women. Of course, no conservative white man is going to touch the fact that white men have felt Black women are readily available for consumption since the days of chattel slavery. Yet even more recent is the history O’Reilly completely ignores; the history of how stereotypes about Black mothers persist despite evidence that refutes them.

Instead of celebrating Black motherhood, O’Reilly joins a long line of white men hell-bent on maintaining stereotypes about and blaming Black women for structural barriers they may face. Like one of his predecessors, Ronald Reagan, we see that cultural “analysis” divorced from the political landscape is an inaccurate portrayal of communities. Reagan was the father of the socio-political image, the “welfare queen”—an image designed to blame Black women for the structural obstacles that limit the opportunities their families face.  And just as Reagan blamed the fictitious Linda Taylor, O’Reilly got to thinking he was irreplaceable when he tried to problematize Black teen pregnancy then blame Mrs. Carter.

If only this stopped with Reagan and O’Reilly. We see these types of harassment everywhere from daily life to television to virtual reality. Whether it is Piers Morgan sensationalizing Janet Mock’s story as she tries to promote her New York Times best-selling book, “Redefining Realness” or the various ways Black women are treated on social media, we see continual warfare on Black women throughout culture, our social interactions and policy formation. Culturally, we need to move beyond scapegoat devices of blaming individuals to see the structural barriers Black women face—from reproductive rights, housing and employment discrimination to collective care.

So here are a few ways white men can start re-imagining Black women, to the beat of Beyoncé’s lyrics. Yes, bring the beat in!

1)   Put A Ring On It: Call local legislators to protect reproductive rights. There are any number of issues, including the rejection of bills like SB 1391, a dangerous Tennessee bill designed to prevent childbirth that will hit Black women the hardest or the need to end the over-criminalization of pregnant mothers.  

2)   Recognize Who Runs the World and work to disrupt and change it. Beyoncé understands that men have had chances and now it’s time to shift the paradigm. Instead of using media to condemn Black women, support Black women in media. Check out then donate to Esther Armah’s campaign to build a weekly talk show run by women of color.

3)   When you hear other people condemning Black women, say, Driver, roll up the partition please! Check them with facts that center Black women and incorporate their lived experiences. You can do this by reading books written by and building relationships with Black women.

4)   Check On It: Instead of focusing on misguided perceptions of who’s to blame for Black teen pregnancy,shed light and awareness on the fact 234 Nigerian girls were kidnapped from their dorm rooms. #BringBackOurGirls

White men need to stop being Beautiful Liars and join the Party. Wake up and realize that Black women are***Flawless. Let’s focus our attention on building social practices and policies that support Black women instead of neglecting them.

XO!

Johnathan Fields is a writer and activist living in New York City. He believes in racial justice, mental health advocacy and Beyoncé. Follow him on Twitter: @JohnnyGolightly.

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In recent history, Bill O’Reilly had a stand-up routine about Beyonce’s agenda to pushteenage pregnancy. Here is an excerpt of what Bill O’Reilly actually feels:

Bill re-upped his outrage on Friday while talking about Bey’s TIME cover, saying — “she knows that young girls getting pregnant in the African-American community now is about 70% out of wedlock. She knows and doesn’t seem to care.” [1]

To add to the punch line, Bill took things even further. He even noted that she was not deserving of the TIME cover because she does not encourage abstinence [2]. In short, Bill O’Reilly has a problem with the inner messages of Beyonce’s music.

You have to hand it to Bill O’Reilly: he does take the time actually make his brand of slap stick comedy accessible to the world. Too bad he is missing that counterpart to balance his foolishness (*cough* Cam’Ron *cough*). I mean, somebody has to treat Bill like the political stooge that he is.

The Bill O’Reilly-Beyoncé Issue

Here are a few things that are off about his issues with Beyoncé:

Legally, she can whisper “Hail Hydra” in her boo’s ear.

1.)    Beyoncé is married: It is extremely hard to promote ideals that you, yourself, are not openly apart of unless you mention them in a guided fashion. Nowhere on Beyoncé’s new album is there a reference to premarital sex. In fact, Beyoncé has been married for quite some time now. So, Beyoncé can be as raunchy and subtly sexual as she wants to be. Here is the newsflash: she is a married woman. So, she has that right to do what she does.

2.)    The “marriage in wedlock” issue: I think I covered this with the Melissa Ortiz female that wanted to go on a simple minded rant about Black people. Personally, I think she was mad at her own dysfunctional-loon ass family. At any rate, I explained the entire marriage-out-of-wedlock issue plainly:

Another problematic stat she spoke up on is the “75 percent bastard baby rate”. Yeah, that rate is misleading in its own right. The problem is that the birth rate for married AND unmarried Black women is dropping [3]. It just so happen that those said children are “bastard babies”.

Now let us move on.

3.)    Teen pregnancy is on the decline: Can you believe it, people? Teen pregnancy is on the decline in all communities as a whole [4]. That isn’t the only major development that Bill O’Reilly got wrong. He also did not note that teen pregnancy in the African American community has dropped 51 percent between 1999 to 2009 [5]. So, Bill is caught in a mental time warp where Puff Daddy may have been wearing shiny suits and Tommy Hilfigermade his clothes accessible to the African American community.

The Skinny on the Bill O’Reilly-Beyonce Madness

It is hard to take Bill O’Reilly seriously anymore. Too many times he is either misinformed or just plain lying. So, all I can take him as is a comedian. Too bad many conservatives see him as some sort of political/social pundit. Then they would realize that Bill O’Reilly takes more pie to the face than Martin Clare.

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Okay, so what’s the big deal about Jay-Z and Beyoncé going to Cuba? I’ve been hearing that there have been grumblings all week from certain people here in America. And of course as politics would have it, the only people having a hissy fit are my friends who lean right when it comes to politics. Case in point, Sen. Marco Rubio — the “Ricky Ricardo” of the Republican party — has asked for an investigation into their trip. Rubio asserts that the Cuban government used the power couple for “propaganda purposes,” and he wants answers from the White House. If you ask me, Jay-Z and Beyoncé should’ve went to Kenya instead of Cuba. If they did, concerned Americans like Rubio wouldn’t give a damn.

Rubio isn’t the only concerned American with Cuban ties to express concern. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans from Florida of Cuban descent have both issued a letter to to Adam Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department to “express concern” and “request information” regarding the trip, because since the 1960′s there has been an embargo on American tourism to Cuba. So what? Are Jay-Z and Beyoncé the first celebrities to visit Cuba ever? What, are Rubio and company worried about them bringing back a boat load of cocaine to fund the criminal enterprise of yet another Cuban immigrant like Scarface? Nope, something tells me that this has something to do with the couples ties to the White House. That’s right! I mean everybody knows that Barack and Michelle are known to hangout in weed-smoke-filled recording studios with both entertainers on occasion, when not sitting in the VIP section of Jay-Z’s 40-40 Club as they host fundraisers for a certain Democrat.

But as far as the ridiculous when it comes to right-wing reactions to this trip. Nothing is more fucking stupid than the following assessment by conservative writer, A.J. Delgado, as pointed out by my man Field Negro. It appears that Delgado is embracing this post-racial thing pretty well as he offers the following criticism of Jay-Z and Beyoncé traveling to Cuba to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary. In a piece titled Useful Idiots: Beyoncé and Jay-Z Ignore Cuba’s Racism With Havana Trip, Delgado writes the following over at FOX Nation:

This week, superstars Beyoncé and Jay-Z celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary with a trip to Cuba or, as the informed refer to it, “the island prison.”

While dining, partying, and enjoying the best Havana has to offer, Beyoncé and Jay-Z not only legitimize and support the repressive regime, with both their presence and their cash, but turn a blind eye, cruelly, to the perils and languishing of the Cuban people.

Both stars are proud African-Americans — yet, curiously, chose to vacation in a country notorious for relegating its black population to second-class status, or worse. (source)

Okay, I know the Republican party is working on reaching out in an attempt to bridge the gap with minority voters. that said, there’s no way that myself (or any9one afflicted with melanin) is buying this line of garbage from Delgado. Sorry, Delgado, but in the immortal words of the great American Negro poet, Shawn Corey Carter: “We don’t believe you; you need more people!” Yes, I’m not buying your sudden concern with racism and the oppression of African-Americans. Besides, I remember the Cuban government offering to send ships with doctors to act as floating hospitals in the wake of Hurricane Katrina after it hit New Orleans. Not America’s proudest moment by far. However, I do remember then President George W. Bush saying no to Fidel’s assistance while black and brown people who look like me perished. Yeah, so miss me with that one, buddy.

Honestly, I think Field Negro said it best:

This is the equivalent to a bank robber lecturing a cat burglar for stealing at night. How an American could lecture anyone about another country and their history of racism is beyond me.

I look at the Cubans who made their way to South Florida as opposed to those who are still there, and it is obvious that the haves in that country- prior to the revolution-looked a certain way, and the have-nots looked a little different. (See darker.)

I remember a country that gave other predominantly black countries in the region things such as doctors, teachers, experts to help and teach new and unique ways of farming (micro dams) , and aid to help build the infrastructure of those countries. A country that was instrumental in moving these poorer countries from a state of dependent capitalism to self sufficiency.

I remember a country with a leader (Fidel) who embraced Nelson Mandela when our government was still supporting the regime that imprisoned him. A man who President Mandela personally thanked for helping to “topple apartheid.”

But folks like Delgado will never get it. (source)

Nicely played, sir; nicely played. Oh, and as for the U.S. government’s answer to the concerned? They’ve given an official explanation, but don’t tell that to anybody who thinks that the trip was paid for with taxpayer dollars as a gift from President Obama as I’m sure some may think.

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Beyonce causes these sorts of reactions when she gently glides before her fans. They love her, they adore her, they want to mimic her spastic pelvic twerks and jerk-like dance moves. They want to know everything about her and are very protective of her… In fact, it’s borderline deification and they’ll kill anyone dead, if they dare speak ill of their super-pop goddess idol.  The impact of her fame is undeniable and if there’s one other thing I’m also certain about, it’s that she’s a polarizing pop-culture figure and people watch everything she does closely, even the minutiae… including her strong detractors. Theorists have accused her of being the poster child for the elusive Illuminati and feminist bloggers have dissected her girl-empowerment anthems, questioning whether or not she’s truly equipped to espouse rhetoric about girls running the world.  The woman generates dialogue… legitimate and asinine.

With a gesture one celebrity blogger deemed a “Stunt Queen move”, Beyonce lovingly framed what appeared to be a growing baby-bump on the red carpet of the 2011 MTV VMAs, people had a fit. Since I didn’t have any power due to Hurricane Irene’s angry, dark-sided wrath, I missed the spectacle, but read the myriad of reactions via Twitter, right before my phone’s battery decided to die and officially cut me off from the rest of the world. One of the common memes I read while swathed in the darkness, were folks suddenly bashing single, unmarried mothers.  Even after my power was restored and I caught up with still buzzing social media forums, folks were rejoicing as if a baby were growing in their very own wombs, and used the news to continue to berate single mothers for not being married to a multimillionaire rap mogul. “See ladies?? This is how you do it!” Many chided. And so Beyonce not only became a super-pop star and spokesperson for the Illuminati (allegedly)… she was christened Patron Pop Saint of No Wedding No Wombdom. So it is with amusement that I read some of the very same people, who mocked single mothers for being unwed, perpetuating the “Beyonce Ain’t Really Pregnant and Has a Fake Baby Bump” mess currently sweeping the Ignanet. The woman squats to sit down for an interview, and the fabric of her dress billows/folds awkwardly in the process and suddenly she’s padding her belly for attention… Really folks? Even the Daily Mail took the non-news story and ran with it.  Suddenly, people started speculating on her fertility and accused the couple of having secretly secured the services of a surrogate.

Usually ignoring most rumors surrounding her being, Beyonce’s spokespeople vehemently shot down rumors that she’s wearing a fake baby bump, calling the claim “stupid, ridiculous and false.”  Short, concise, and fitting for such foolery.

I wonder what will be cooked up next once Beyonce finally pushes out her fake (allegedly) baby…  …  …  And do people continue to be adamant about policing a woman’s womb or uterus?

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But then I wake up today and I hear grown women debating whether Beyonce is really pregnant, and I’m like, really? Seriously people, what exactly does Beyonce stand to gain by lying about being pregnant? More importantly, what do you have to lose if she was in fact lying about her pregnancy? Were you invited to the baby shower, and are you now worrying about showing up with that expensive gift your broke-ass obviously can’t afford? Listen, the only person who should be worrying about whether she’s llying about being pregnant, is the dude worrying about getting a second job at MJcDonalds just to make child support payments. I’m not sure if her husband Jay-Z is too worried or in a financial pinch, so who are you to question it. I swear, some of y’all need to get some business.

Look, just be happy that the woman is even able to get pregnant. Hell, take it a step further and throw a celebratory party for Jay-Z’s lazy sperm making it. Do something positive if you feel like it. However, stay away from all the conspiracy talk, please? Seriously, getting sucked in to the “fake pregnancy” debate really makes you look silly. I mean, like, who cares? I know I don’t.

The post Beyonce, BET Hip Hop Awards, & Grown Folks appeared first on Madness & Reality.

First, we are treated to a gang of supermodels who are doing their hardest to look hard.  GRRRL Powah!!  This is a music video though, so that’s not what is really problematic.  I knew I was in for it when Beyonce slinks over to the men who are dressed in riot gear, and intent on squashing this female insurrection.  She’s not stomping over.  She’s not walking anything like the female drill sergeants I used to see go toe to toe with the men for the command of our platoon.  She’s slinking over like she’s trying to figure out which one will want to sleep with her.  Okay, I guess…  I mean, one could argue that she’s in control, but in my world of girls “running” the world, she’s going to walk over confidently, pick one, and get it going.  He’ll either go for it or he won’t.  He probably would, however, seeing as how “girls” run the world.

Oh, and if girls run the world, why are men trying to squash their insurrection/rebellion?  If you run the world, why are you trying to assert your dominance?  YOU run it already, amirite?

Another thing I find problematic is the use of images like these when in the real world, women are trying to gain control of their lives from corrupt governments (see Iran, Egypt, Syria, Libya, etc.), and they are facing VERY real riot police who are shooting and killing them (RIP Neda), dancing in lingerie and sexy garb be damned.  Some women face the threat of rape or kidnapping for their freedom, and no amount of gyration will give them their God-given rights back from corrupt regimes.  They are fighting next to the men, putting their lives at risk to ensure their voices are heard.  Women around the world are still fighting various battles on the field for equality.  We are simply NOT there yet, especially minority women. 

At the time Beyonce was singing that “girls run the world,” 48 women were being raped per hour in the Congo, and their calls for justice were being ignored.  Black women are dying at an alarming rate due to maternal death.  If you think this is going on in some poor country in Africa or Latin America alone, you would be sorely mistaken.  That’s happening on American soil at this very moment. 

Beyonce is not known for being the most progressive or intellectual person.  It is totally plausible that she went along with or dreamt up this video, song, and their puerile concepts without knowing what was going on around her.  It’s just not acceptable. 

The media has incredible power to influence the masses, and far too many women seem to forget or believe that the crux of our fight for equality is the ability to be intimate with whoever we want and not be called “slut.”  That’s not all though.  It goes deeper than that.  Saying that this video is empowering because she *gasp* has the “balls” to dance in the dirt with her friends in garters and thigh highs is juvenile. 

They dance to appease the male gaze.  If girls run the world, why are you dancing for the men, and not the other way around?  Mind, I don’t want male subservience either.  But no one thought about an alternate universe, where powerful women are at the head of boardrooms?  No one thought to dress her up as the POTUS with an all-female staff; all-female military commanders? 

I can’t really say I am disappointed in Beyonce.  I don’t believe in her or anyone in her industry that much.  I feel that if you say girls run the world, or will run the world, actually give a shit and show it.  Don’t pass off another wet dream as female empowerment.  Everything about the video was the opposite of what she was singing about.  I’m not down with that third wave feminist manifesto that is basically patriarchy retooled and stuffed into a box with black lace and hot pink satin with the words “You’ve come a long way, baby” on a card.

Just call it “Men Still Run This Bitch Despite Our Best Efforts At Looking Sexy In Our Underwear” and be done with it.  At least, she’d get points for being honest…

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