The Free List : Vol. 1, No. 3
A BEYONCÉ RANT, OR, PEOPLE ACT LIKE BEYONCÉ FELL FROM THE SKY
Ok. Just want to give a bit of context. When Beyoncé announced her new visual album, "Black Is King," there was a blacklash (that's black people backlash). I'm sure there was also backlash from non-black people, but I so do not care about that. This rant is not addressing whatever non-black people are saying or not saying.
Some Black folks have been calling Beyoncé an opportunist and black capitalist for years. And when she announced this new project, it was no different: Beyoncé is doing this to capitalize on BLM. Why is she making a deal with Disney?! Beyoncé is commodifying blackness/irresponsibly using Black spirituality, and other such gripes.
So this is me in my bedroom on July 7th, just trying to talk that through.
And you should also know that whenever black people come after Beyoncé, I feel personally attacked. Not because I am a part of the beyhive. I am a huge fan of Beyoncé, but as my sister-friend Nidra Sous La Terre recently said on IG, "I don't claim beyhive because I'm grown ass woman" and, also, I don't love crowds.
I'm a huge fan, but my offense comes from a place I would say is even deeper.
Bey and I grew up in very similar ways:
She is a post-civil rights child raised in the suburbs with a dad in corporate selling medical equipment, I am post-civil rights child raised in the suburbs with a dad in corporate selling medical equipment.
Our mothers were both in the healing business: Hers owned a beauty salon. My mom is a physician.
Our childhood houses look a lot a like and were filled with Black art.
She is the oldest sibling and has a younger sister, so do I.
She did childhood talent shows, voice lessons, dance. So did I.
She came into this world with a presence that other people noticed. Me too. Leading to both of our talents being "discovered" around the same age.
She is and was simultaneously glorified and despised for having "light-skin" (measured, let us not forget, by the metric of whiteness which unfairly rules our lives). Me, same.
Our dads have very similar psychologies, experiences, and strategies with White America. So much so, that I believe with the change of a variable, I could've easily been Beyonce G. Knowles.
So when people attack her, especially our people, I feel attacked. I feel misunderstood. Maybe that's something I should phone a friend about, but for now,
👆🏽 is an unplanned 11-minute rant into my iPhone. (I started recording right after I foamed about the complex traps of colorism. Maybe another time for that.)
a couple of Very Important Corrections::
✔️ Mathew Knowles worked for Xerox Corporation, not FedEx.
✔️ her first group was called GirlsTime, not GirlsTown.
✔️ And, mostly importantly. Beyoncé has already written at least three dissertations. "Black Parade"––the single she released on Juneteenth, is a brilliant lyrical density of epic proportions that I suspect was written and re-written hundreds if not thousands of times until it was right. It reminded me that she has been in deep study for so long. She has been in communication with her ancestors and listening to the people for so long. This woman does not need the academy. At all.
And, I was having a day. Black women are winning.
~
All of the work here is brought to you by the gifts of our Ancestors; seen and unseen, known and unknown. May we remember our rising, may we light the shadows. May we all together thrive.
