I was not going to comment on Beyoncé’s revolutionary song and video “Formation.” This song is by the Black community, about the Black community, and for the Black community. Something that current events have shown they desperately need.
Unfortunately, recent events I have witnessed personally have prompted me to say something. I was sitting in the highly frequented lounge outside Starbucks on campus, working on homework, when six presumably white girls came and sat in the chairs across from me. It can be assumed that they were catching up in between classes, grabbing lunch, normal college student stuff. But then things got bad…fast.
This past weekend saw the surprise release of Beyoncé’s new music video for “Formation,” only 24 hours before her performance at the Superbowl 50 Halftime Show. In order to put this in context, in case you have not yet seen the video, Beyoncé has essentially constructed a compilation of Black culture and Black history into a single video. She features Black queerness, reaffirms the beauty of traditional Black hairstyles, references her roots in Creole culture in Louisiana, celebrates unity between Black women and sinks with the rest of New Orleans into the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In her Superbowl performance, she paid homage to Michael Jackson’s 1993 performance at the same event by wearing a very similar outfit to what he wore. Her backup dancers, meanwhile, were dressed in Black Panther-esque style in homage to the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther civil rights group. All while performing a segment of “Formation,” mind you. At the Superbowl where Black quarterback Cam Newton is playing. This was an important moment in Black history, and during Black History Month.
Keeping this in mind, it was extremely difficult to sit across from these sorority members while they commented on Beyoncé’s active weekend. “The video was OK, I guess,” one girl was saying, “but like, I felt kinda left out because I’m not black. Isn’t that counterproductive to fixing racism?” At the very least, this comment is woefully ignorant. You know what’s not going to “fix racism”? Being a white person invalidating “Formation” because you couldn’t identify with it. Welcome to how people of color feel every day in mainstream culture. You were supposed to feel “left out,” because for once this was not about you. Or me. It was about the Black community. It was about how Black people are killed by police on a daily basis and the legal system refuses to prosecute. It was about how the U.S. Government contributed to the high death toll of Black people during and after Hurricane Katrina. It was about a systemic industry built on the enslavement of Black people. Instead of being upset that these movements aren’t about you, be happy that you don’t need them.
Unfortunately, things only got worse. “There was too much black stuff going on,” one girl commented, “I feel like Beyoncé should have let Coldplay had more time…I mean, it was a Coldplay performance.” Her comment was met with verbal praise from several other girls in the group. Though it’s true that Beyoncé was a “guest performer” while Coldplay was the main performance, within this comment is the same constant silencing of Black voices that have allowed racism to thrive in our society. The reduction to “this black stuff” reinforces a dichotomy in which Black people are simply “less than” and “need to know their place.”
What is so disheartening is that these girls are members of a sorority that is supposedly progressive and empowering for women (sidenote: I know which sorority they’re in because of the stickers on their MacBooks). This is endemic of a greater culture in mainstream Greek-life college sororities, which are, not by coincidence, predominantly white. They are therefore natural breeding grounds for white feminism, the same brand of “feminism” that questioned two years ago whether Beyoncé was “allowed” to call herself a feminist based on her clothing and dancing styles.
There are obviously much worse things than white feminism. White feminism has used white privilege to get some women the right to vote, to campaign for abolition and fight for reproductive justice. That being said, white feminism is not enough. Feminism is intersectional, it intersects with race and sexuality and ability and so on. When we allow whiteness to wash over performances of racial justice, such as those of Beyoncé, we are acting against true feminism: equality and justice for everyone.
