Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Beyoncé's "Formation" Forces the US to Face Its Racial Issues

Beyoncé sings "best revenge is your paper" - Source: Youtube


Black Lives Matter, police brutality and colorism are all part of the latest Beyoncé Knowles video celebrating her Blackness. What does American society think of this reminder?

It hit where it hurts. Beyoncé's new “Formation” video, released on the eve of her performance at the Super Bowl's halftime on Sunday, is highly political. It stands in support of the Black Lives Matter movement when the singer denounces police brutality towards African Americans. In the video, a young boy dances in front of armed police officers before we see a “Stop Shooting Us” graffiti; the police officers then put their own hands in the air. This gesture echoes the (controversial) posture of surrender of 18-year-old Michael Brown when he was shot by the police in Ferguson two years ago. “Hands up, don't shoot” then became a protest rallying cry, taken up by Black Lives Matter.


 Beyoncé's video also reminds us of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, when she sits on top of a police car in the middle of a flooded land, before sinking together with the car at the end. In 2005, Katrina left New Orleans severely wounded, with more than one thousand dead. While the hurricane could not be avoided, the weak and slow means employed to counter it posed the question of reactivity from the federal government when it comes to Black populations.


A well-timed performance sparking strong reactions


Beyoncé's political statement was all the more powerful and controversial that it came from a $54.5 million African American star, and that she has previously been accused of whitewashing her image for promotional purposes. With this video, she seems to be affirming her Black identity and engagement. The video's release and Super Bowl show were also rightly timed with this year's Black History Month, celebrating important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. Ms Knowles, who also announced a “Formation” world tour on Sunday, sparked a lot of reactions on social media within hours of the video's publication on Saturday. According to some, it was inappropriate to politicize during the Super Bowl, and her video was too much anti-police, thereby polarizing further the American society:






Others saluted her for voicing African Americans' struggles and taking pride in her Blackness:




Anti-police criticisms of Beyoncé's video might just be a means to shift the focus of the argument. The “Formation” video does not target the police as a global entity. Neither is the video anti-White. Rather, “Stop Shooting Us” targets no more than police brutality towards the African American community – which is not all of the police. Pro-Black does not mean anti-White.


Just like the controversy over whether Michael Brown really had his hands up in the air or not, this is merely a detail that can not discredit a whole movement based on rightful indignation of the targetting of African American communities in the country. The Michael Brown shooting was not an isolated case, and the “Hands up, don't shoot” rally, whether based on a true story or not on that day, is more of a symbolical rally describing the fears of the Black community.


The police and African Americans


A public figure also thought this video was anti-police: Rudolph Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City. In a Fox News interview, he condemned Beyoncé for using the show to “attack police officers who protect her”. This was the man who had to answer for New York Police Department racial profiling through the scourge of stopping and frisking predominantly people of color. His explanation was that such procedures were done based on crime statistics and people more likely to carry guns in certain areas. But some studies have shown that less than a third of suspects stopped and searched in New York City are picked out because they have been identified by victims.


Profiling issues have been a problem for decades. It was under another mayor's leadership, Michael Bloomberg, that former NYPD officer Nick, a 25-year-old from Connecticut, quit his job and became the head of security in a luxury brand store in the city. He recalls why he decided to leave his job: “The department's command was going in a direction that I really didn't agree with.”


“I felt like a lot of what they are doing violates the rights of the people and I no longer felt like I was "protecting and serving" the people of New York. I felt like a storm trooper from Star Wars. We were doing nothing but abusing the citizens. I was told to stop people at random and pat them down for weapons or drugs even if they did nothing wrong, especially minorities. I spoke to my Captain and my superiors about how it didn't feel right and I was just told: "do your job, or someone else will." It felt terrible leaving, but my integrity as a person was more important than any job I would ever do. I used to feel like I was doing something good and noble. America is changing, and it isn't good.”


Criticism from the African American community


Another criticism came from doctor Yaba Blay, Dan Blue endowed chair in political Science at North Carolina Central University who researches skin color and identity politics. Being a dark-skinned African American from New Orleans, she was disappointed in the fact that a Black woman like Beyoncé would make a distinction between “Negro” and “Creole”. Creoles descend from a mixture of African, French, Spanish and/or Native American people and tend to distinguish themselves racially from “regular Negroes” by putting forward their whiteness.


Ayanna Legros, born to Haitian parents and graduate student in Africana Studies at New York University, is well aware of this problematic aspect of Beyoncé's video. She also acknowledges the fact that Beyoncé had to “sell out” first in order to acquire such a platform from which to speak: “It's a sad truth, but many black folks have to sell out before getting to a place and space where they can actually say what is on their mind. It happens in the music industry, sports industry, and even academia.” Beyoncé herself seems to be denouncing this when she sings “I see it, I want it, I stunt, yellow-bone it” (yellow-bone being the lightest type of light skinned black female).


Still, she welcomes this video: “Whether or not you like it, Beyoncé got America talking about Katrina, artistry, ‪Black Lives Matter‬, black identity, etc in less than 24 hours. She started the conversation. I have realized that nothing anyone will ever do will please everyone. But it's about starting the conversation. Period.” Just like Beyoncé says herself at the end of her song: “You know you('re) that b**** when you cause all this conversation; Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper”.


This article was written as a university assignment.
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