In case you missed the 50 Super bowl halftime show you missed quite a performance.
While Coldplay was the main performer followed by Bruno Mars, Beyonce had a political agenda to convey, which some say she executed perfectly with her new single, “Formation.”
While some would applaud her performance, others are beginning to protest the entertainer.
“Beyonce got us surfboarding in 2014, and now she got us taking bae to red lobster,” one twitter follower tweeted to the entertainer. While another not so in favor of the singer wrote, “Didn’t realize Beyonce’s song last night was basically anti-cop. Screw her.”
Beyonce used her celebrity status to shed light to the dark side of what some say America is, and what white Americans continually sweep under the rug.
She used the song to bring awareness to the police brutality that continues to spread across the country.
The whole black lives movement is to bring awareness to what is going on in these communities that people continually turn the other cheek to. The movement isn’t just to glorify black lives but it is to highlight that black lives, just like anyone else’s, matters too.
The “Formation” music video was about the black victims of police brutality, not assimilating to white culture, loving her Afro, baby hairs, her melanin, and big lips, the video is to teach other black kids as well as adults to love yourself.
People calling her out and claiming that she is racist is incredibly ignorant to the message behind the song.
Due to the fact that she came out with a song that doesn’t cater to her normal white fans, many seemed to take offensive to Beyonce wanting to celebrate her race and culture.
Now, people are holding anti-Beyonce rally’s to protest the halftime show performance and taking to twitter to voice their opinions.
But in reality, today, we still have active KKK chapters that are still living and thriving in the United States—where they resonate on hate, and violence, and white supremacy, but few wants to acknowledge the white supremacists in America.
Seattle rapper Macklemore noted a while back, that whites, “talk all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives? We want to dress like, walk like, talk like, dance like, yet we just idly by, as they constantly get disrespected.” (billboard.com).
“It’s a reality that’s been allowed to exist only by virtue of a low-level cognitive dissonance that lets people easily separate art from both the world at large and the artists who create it” stated the Billboard writer Kris Ex.
It seems that whenever POC’s (people of color) want to do positive things and talk about their culture and beauty features that don’t pertain to the “norm”, it is shot down and they are ridiculed.
But, why are people suddenly afraid of Beyonce’s black pride? It’s almost as if people have totally forgotten that she, herself, is a black woman.
Beyonce performed with all black dancers.
There are people who are calling Beyonce racist, mainly for, not having any white performers.
Many counter that white women do not need any help in being represented, be it modeling, dancing, singing, and acting.
If anything, one could easily argue that their market is so over-saturated that it’s difficult to stand out in the large crowd (more like sea) of white in the entertainment industry. Which is one of the main issues actors such as Jada Pinkett are raising awareness to, with the upcoming Oscars.
“Begging for acknowledgment or even asking,” she says staring down the camera, “diminishes dignity and diminishes power. And we are a dignified people. And we are powerful. Let’s not forget it. So let’s let the Academy do them, with all grace and love. And let’s do us.”
Beyonce was also criticized for her homage to the Black Panthers.
American’s have a very distorted image of what and who the Black Panthers were.
Black communities had suffered murder, lynchings, burnings, and all around torture.
For these reasons, in 1966 the Black Panthers where formed.
The Panthers set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feeding over 10,000 children every day when they went to school (marxists.org).
The organization protected themselves, fed themselves, and formed their own communities away from the violence of the white people who did not want them in their communities.
The Black Panthers weren’t the ones who started the racial divisiveness, nor is it okay to act like there were lines of white people looking to embrace the black community with open arms to provide education, food, jobs, and clothing.
Youtuber, Franchesca Ramsey, discussed the controversy revolving around the Black Panthers and Beyonce.
She stated, “mind you, I’m aware there are exceptions to every rule. I know there were likely some awesome white people who wanted and maybe even did all those things. But the point is that it was never enough. And when people are dying, when your ability to care for family is being impacted by the behavior of the most vocal and violent of white people, it may dawn on you to start your own organization to protect yourself and your loved ones.”
So while many may interpret Beyonce’s performance as tearing down white people, the real point of it was to build black people up.
During black history month, let’s thank Beyonce for recognizing a rich black history and sparking a conversation.