Much of physical and psychological violence and hatred is rooted in religious fundamentalism and the social construction of rigid gender roles. The man who allegedly confessed to the hate crime of beheading a gay man in Puerto Rico said he became enraged when he realized the individual he thought was a woman, was a man dressed in women’s clothing. He had picked him up at an area known for prostitution and he freaked when he realized the object of his lust was a homosexual. As I heard this, I realized that this man was attacking something he couldn’t face inside himself. The tragedy being that the gay man dressed in women’s clothing died simply because everything his killer feared was projected onto him. How else do you explain the decapitation if not as some warped, deep-seated, repressed sense of self-loathing?

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Hell, at the time, for all I knew Mateen was a wannabe stick-up-kid like “Omar Little” on The Wire. Which is ironic, because, the character on The Wire was a gay black man. So, for all I knew, Mateen was simply projecting his inner homo-thug and not attempting to be an inductee in the Jihadist Hall of Fame.

Having said that, now there are reports that Mateen actually frequented the Pulse nightclub. According to the Orlando Sentinel, at least four witnesses have said that Mateen frequently attended parties at Pulse.

“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” Ty Smith told the local newspaper. “We didn’t really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times. He told us he had a wife and child.”

In another report with the Palm Beach Post, Chris Callen recalled Mateen being escorted drunk from the Pulse nightclub on multiple occasions, including an incident where Mateen pointed a knife at a friend. Callen, who performs under the name Kristina McLaughlin at the club said, “He’s been going to this bar for at least three years.”

Then there’s this:

A former classmate of Omar Mateen’s 2006 police academy class said he believed Mateen was gay, saying Mateen once asked him out.

[…] The classmate said that he, Mateen and other classmates would hang out, sometimes going to gay nightclubs, after classes at the Indian River Community College police academy. He said Mateen asked him out romantically.

“We went to a few gay bars with him, and I was not out at the time, so I declined his offer,” the former classmate said. He asked that his name not be used.

He believed Mateen was gay, but not open about it. Mateen was awkward, and for a while the classmate and the rest in the group of friends felt sorry for him.

“He just wanted to fit in and no one liked him,” he said. “He was always socially awkward.”

From where I’m sitting, Omar Mateen was a sexually repressed closeted gay man with an Arabic name and brown skin, fighting against his true self in a heck of a sexual identity crisis. This, I believe, led to a life of mental turmoil as it would anyone who is (and once was) in the closet about their sexual identity.

You can choose to believe the narrative that suggests that Omar Mateen was, at best, an ISIS operative, or at least, an ISIS sympathizer. The problem with that is that per the FBI investigators, to date, Mateen claimed to be down with several jihadists groups who are at odds with each other.

Now, maybe it’s because I’m black and that common sense has nothing to do with it, but, err… um, you can’t be a member of the Bloods and Crips at the same time. So, quite naturally, anyone who says that they are, like Mateen who claims to have ties with al-Queada, Hezbollah, and ISIS all at the same time, are simply full of shit.

But What About The 911 Call?

Omar Mateen was trolling everybody when he made that 911 call and pledged his support to ISIS. Sadly, a lot of people fell for it with the help of the media. Mateen was not a “terrorist” in the traditional sense. He wasn’t a Jihadist. He was simply a sexually repressed man who happened to be Muslim with an Arabic name who liked men; who, for whatever reason, couldn’t get any ass. Mateen was like that guy, Elliot Rodger, the frustrated virgin in his twenties who killed seven women in random drive-by shootings at UC Santa Barbara back in 2014. Remember him? He even wrote a manifesto and left it behind for us to read.

He couldn’t get any ass either.

To me, his beef with gay people which ultimately resulted in a tragedy was an internal beef with himself. And, it was to the extent that he refused to compromise his sexuality by dialing 911 and pledging his support to ISIS. As conflicted as he was, I think the 911 call gave cover to his true motivation and shielded his relatives from the truth.

Essentially, with one phone call to 911, Mateen was trolling the world in attempting to hide from the shame of being gay. Unfortunately, many people – including ISIS – actually fell for it.

Omar Mateen’s Selfies Told It All

I’m sorry, but Islamic terrorists don’t take selfies. The number of selfies this guy took was a red flag for me very early. Oh yeah, and we now know that he had profiles on gay dating apps. Yep, who didn’t see that coming? Once ISIS finds out that Mateen was gay, they’ll be like: “Nah dawg, we can’t fuck with you like that. We gon’ need them seventy-two virgins back, my gee. Them bitches are for real niggas and not fuck-boys.”

But hey, keep believing the narrative circulating in the echo chamber of stupid because your American patriotism and Christian religion won’t allow you to like members of the LGBT community and Muslims.

The post Omar Mateen Was Gay. Islamic Terrorist? Nope. appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Here is more of the story:

NEW YORK – A man was arrested after police say he attacked his wife’s would be rapist and he beat him to death, PIX11 reports.

Police responded to a call about assault and attempted rape at an apartment building in theBronx on Monday evening around 10:16 p.m.

A 51-year-old woman told police she was in her apartment when a man forced his way inside, struck her, ripped off her clothing, and attempted to rape her.

The woman screamed and fought him off, and she called her husband Mamadou Diallo, 61, who was outside of the apartment at the time.

Diallo rushed to her aid and came into contact with her attempted rapist Earl D. Nash, 43, on the sixth floor. Diallo punched Nash several times.

When police arrived, Nash was on the ground suffering from severe head and body trauma. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital. [1]

Okay, so let me break this all the way down as only I can. Mamadou Diallo was called by his wife. Her voice is frantically shaken. She tells him that she had been sexually assaulted. Diallo runs to make sure his wife is okay. He ends up finding the assailant and makes him catch a couple of fades for good measure (fade = fisticuffs). And now this man, Mamadou Diallo, is arrested on manslaughter charges? Yeah, I find it horrendous myself.

Mamadou Diallo Should Be Set Free

Now that most of the bases have been covered, it should be noted that Mamadou Diallo shouldn’t be in anyone’s jail cell. For one, he was protecting his WIFE and tending to her safety. The second reason is that this man was trying to rape his wife. Plus, it probably wasn’t his intent to beat the man to death. And if it was, then it was heavily justified; and that justification is why Diallo needs to be released.

What I found entertaining, more than anything, is that people felt that he should be jailed because the man was killed. However, I’m not sure they took the time to realistically size up the situation. Put yourself in his shoes: Mamadou Diallo was responding to someone trying to sexually accost a loved one. The rapist (with a rap sheet as long as James Harden’s beard), is caught up by Diallo. The first thing any person is going to do is apprehend him. Judging that this was a grown ass man, you would probably give him a couple of punches or rough him up to subdue him. At the end of the day, who are we to actually say we wouldn’t do something in the heat of the moment?

Mamadou Diallo Epilogue

This is a classic A Time To Kill situation: Mamadou Diallo is your regular Carl Lee Haley. And just like Carl Lee, Diallo should be let go. Manslaughter charges should not be brought up against someone protecting their loved one from a criminal. All of this just adds a blemish to the justice system. How can there be justice when there isn’t any real protection for those that are trying to do what’s right and justified?

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Racism doesn’t end when even the government says so. Despite the fall of apartheid in South Africa, the haunting demons of prejudice and racism can still walk among its citizens, especially those in positions of power.

Such is the case with South African judge Mabel Jansen who recently made headlines after her facebook comments during what appears to be an interview surfaced. Jansen’s racist mindset was on full display when she says that rape, as well as murder, is not only part of black culture, but that black people take pleasure in it.

In her conversation she typed the following:

Since the revelation of her Facebook comments, Jansen tried to defend herself on Twitter saying that the comments were “taken out of context”. She has been put on leave and is under investigation. There is currently an online petition to have her removed from the bench.

To say that her comments are offensive would almost be an understatement. Anyone shocked by such comments haven’t been paying attention to the last hundred years of white supremacist history.

Jansen’s comments are a white racist conviction that black people – black men rather – love to rape and kill. Most racists believe in this myth so much that they obsess over black criminal behavior whenever and wherever it occurs. They particularly love when when the victims are white. That way, they can advertise the unsubstantiated and racially paranoid warning that a massive swarm of black demons are out to annihilate the white race.

In Jansen’s case, black men love to rape – gang rape – their own babies, daughters and mothers and will eventually move on to white women next. She also believes that they also think that killing each other is “no biggy”. And, of course, she concludes that that is the truth about black culture.

A white racist’s “truth” is always based on narcissistic falsehoods on how nonwhites are inferior to him or her.

Even though, Jansen admits that “white people have a lot to account for”, somehow black people are way worse!

Okay, I get it. We do have problems with rape and violence in our communities. Not once have I heard any black person anywhere deny that. But to confine it as part of our culture, and only our culture, is not just racist, but also erroneous and problematic.

Just because there are black folks who have murdered and raped doesn’t conclude that black people are a race of murderers and rapists, especially if those criminals are a minority. Judging an entire group based on a few malcontents, is an idiot’s move to hate others. And creating and magnifying reasons to hate others is nothing short of insane and villainous.

If racists care so much about the white race, then they should be doing something about their own problems of rape and murder. What about white men who rape babies, daughters, mothers and pets!? What about the white men who kill white people? Jansen can not say that white intraracial crime doesn’t exist in South Africa or anywhere else in the world. And she definitely can’t claim that white interracial crime isn’t an issue.

But something tells me Jansen is one of those racists who will turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the crimes of white people. She seems too focused on the pathologies of the black community in her jurisdiction to be bothered by the reality that those same pathologies are found in every community in the world, especially her own.

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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.

The past few days have been interesting in this late April of 2016. On Thursday, the world was rocked by the death of Prince. On Friday, Birdman proved just how much respeck he should have put on his name on The Breakfast Club. On Saturday, Beyoncé made lemons into Lemonade to throw heavy industry shade. All of these events led to a surprise/unsurprising situation this Sunday.

That surprisingly unsurprising situation that I speak of is the fact that Lil Kim is now officially Caucasian. That’s right, folks. Black Girls may Rock, but Lil Kim would rather play for the White Sox.

Lil Kim’s Apparent Unhappiness

Honestly, the entire situation is sickening. Lil Kim hasn’t liked Lil Kim for the past few decades (at least). Once she started getting money, she started going under the scalpel. First, it was the fake boobs. Then it was the Michael Jackson nose. After that, it was the reconstruction of her face. And now it seems she has put even more work on her face and used skin bleaching. What is sickening is that Lil Kim hasn’t found the true self love that she actually yearns for.

There is a lot of blame to be passed around. We can blame the men that never thought she was “pretty enough”. We can blame her dad for infusing the self-doubt about her looks. We can even blame her for actually not seeking the help she needed for her battered self-concept. There are plenty of people that contributed to this gumbo of low self esteem. Yet, figuring out who the blame isn’t the bigger issue.

Lil Kim: The Bigger Issue(s)

The bigger issue, for me, is how long all of this went on without enough support for her to seek help. Was anyone in her ear to let her know that she didn’t need to do all of this? I already know she has a gang of “yes men” on her team. But where in the hell were the “hell to the naw people” that all humans require in their lives? Where was her center of gravity in physical form? Where were the people to keep her in check?

And I could get into the colorism issues that plague Black people worldwide, but I won’t. I don’t need to rehash the issues that has Jamaican women and men bleaching their skin until they look like Larenz Tate inDead Presidents. I have already talked about the madness being promoted over in Africa. And people should already assume that there are health issues with the demelaninization (made up word) of one’s skin. I’m not discussion the harmful effects of colorism because we are witnessing just how bad it gets with Lil Kim.

Lil Kim the Living Travesty

All I can feel for her is sadness. With surgery after surgery and reconstruction after reconstruction, I don’t see happiness. One can’t be happy doing all of this. Lil Kim is a broken soul. Yet, the saddest part of it all is that she spent all of her money dealing with the wrong doctor to patch things up with herself.

The post Lil Kim is Officially A White Girl appeared first on Madness & Reality.

While the state has come under fire for its proposed policing of bathroom usage of transgender members of the LGBT community, as Barber points out, North Carolina’s new anti-LGBT law negatively impacts everyone in ways well beyond sexual orientation or gender identity.

The post Rev. William Barber: North Carolina’s New anti-LGBT Law Like “Jim Crow” appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Also, it is a bunch of sadistic, and sexist, bullshit.

Still, many (Black)people hold onto hypermasculinity as if it is the definitive badge of Y chromosome possession. Case in point: in recent history, Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler had recently taken a photo together for Vanity Fair. They were dressed up like the professional, and successful, men they are. To be frank, there was nothing more to make of the shoot. That is, until the hypermasculinity that plagues our society reared its ugly head in all of its patriarchal forms.

Many (Black)people did cartwheels of homophobic disdain over the picture. Yes, my good readers: they actually took a picture of brotherly affection into something way more sexual and perverse than it needed to be. From people questioning “why is he holding his head like that” to commentary of “effeminate” and “demasculation” (is that a word?) appeared out of so many Twitter fingers that it was really head scratching in how far they reached.

All of this conversation and topic trending on the internet over a picture.

A fucking picture, people.

Hypermasculinity Makes Losers of Us All

Damn, people. Is this it? Is this the summation of Black manliness that we are actually trying to achieve here? At what point is manliness is supposed to equate “no affectionate touching” or “making sure you don’t cup my head in any type of way”? Who is coming up with these retarded rules of engagement? And when are we going to stop dancing to the song of hypermasculinity?

Yet and still, I can’t be surprised. Black men are expected to be the “superior beings of inferiority” at every given moment. At the drop of a Lincoln copper penny, we will be called half-witted niggers and quickly dehumanized for whatever blanket faced reason between the pillars of racist expectations and jungle bunny-hyperviolent folklore. Meanwhile, as soon as there is an ounce of sensitivity, emotion, or – God forbid – affection shown between two Black men that have EVERY reason to embrace each other like brothers, there must be some sexual aspect to tarnish the moment. We are all expected to know by now that Black men can’t exhibit simple things like human emotion and caring for each other. Let’s face the bigger issue: Black male expectation swings pendulum style between deity-like to virulent animalism.

Between those extremes of expectations comes the place where Black men hold their stance with being human. No, Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler should not be questioned on a PICTURE that suggestions nothing outside of brotherly bonding. No, Black men should never have to subdue ourselves to the petty expectations of patriarchal archetypes. And no, Black men shouldn’t do goof-ball things to readily assure the people around them that they are actually “men”. The egg-shell walking and Gregory Hines level tap dancing for respectability has gotten out of hand.

Hypermasculinity Sucks

All of this just goes to show you what is wrong with our society. Hypermasculinity is not a badge of honor; it is a plague. And this plague has carried over into places and spaces it shouldn’t exist. A man can embrace another man that he respects in any way they want if it isn’t obviously questionable. Affection should never be limited to women and children. Then again, you cannot be surprised by the comments of those that are extra sensitive with their patriarchal beliefs over a picture.

You know: because they are bored.

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Say what you want about Amber Rose, but she has found a way to keep her name in the media. If she isn’t breaking-up-to-make-up with Wiz Khalifa, she is shutting down Kanye West on Twitter. If she isn’t deflecting the slut shaming that comes her way, then she is having a city wide slut walk. Say what you will: Amber Rose has kept her life happening as a B-List celebrity. And it seems that she won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

In recent history, Amber Rose appeared on the Tyrese and Rev. Run hosted show “It’s Not You, Its Men”. She appeared on the show for promotional reasons. Within the interview, there are some topics that came up: how she is perceived and the point behind the Slut Walk. She gets into the meaning of the Slut Walk and gave the reasoning behind it. And then, that is when things got interesting.

Amber Rose, in all actuality, had to address the situation of when “No means No”. She clearly states:

If I’m laying down with a man — butt-naked — and his condom is on, and I say, ‘You know what? No. I don’t want to do this. I changed my mind,’ that means no. That means f-ing no. That’s it… It doesn’t matter how far I take it or what I have on, when I say no, it means no.

Right after that, Rev. Run gave the classic adage that many people follow: “dress how you want to be addressed” to some applause from the crowd. Rose quickly dismantled that nobly sexist idea by reiterating that a person’s outfit does not mean she is DTF (down to fuck) or that they should be mistreated in any way. In short, Amber Rose spent a lot of time explaining to Tyrese and Rev. Run why she believes certain behaviors are not okay.

And you know what? She is absolutely right.

Why Amber Rose is Correct

Amber Rose is correct for the simple fact that she is addressing the pervasive rape culture mentality that has hampered people regardless of race, creed, or gender. And this ideology – that women are not in full ownership of their bodies – is part of the problem. Women don’t owe it to anyone to actually “look appropriate” unless we are talking about professionalism for a job. Their outfit and their wardrobe is not some sort of categorical flaw that should be assessed on the respect that you have for them, either. All this leads to is mistreatment of women because they don’t do what is expected of them. And that’s foolishness.

And yes, they are looking sad. Successful. Yet sad.

What is even sadder is that Tyrese and Rev. Run – two black men – would even condone to such beliefs. The same mentality that many men put on women is the same respectability politics laden mentality that Black men face on a daily basis. This falls right in line with expecting men to “pull up their pants” and “not wear hoodies” so they won’t face any drama. No Black man should condone behavior of respectability politics. Survival tactics that doesn’t assure survival isn’t a survival tactic at all; it is cow-towing to those that don’t care about our survival anyway.

Amber Rose Epilogue

Amber Rose, regardless of her outfits and even her actions, should be treated like a human being. That is not only fair but it is also her right. Condoning the ideals of chaste femininity is nothing more than respectability politics under rape culture. As a people, we need to stop making people responsible for things they are not responsible for. Also, we have to agree that people are in ownership of their own bodies. Kudos to Amber Rose for taking a stand for equal treatment and fairness.

Maybe she is more than a B-List celebrity. I can’t wait to see what else she comes up with.

The post Amber Rose is Right: Women Own Their Bodies appeared first on Madness & Reality.

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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