I have always, always, ALWAYS been a Beyonce fan.  I love her for her powerful performances, her strength, her beauty, her ability to move with grace through the minefield of fame, and her many innovative reinventions of herself.  I obsessed over her in Carmen: A Hip Hopera.  I knew (know) every move in the Say My Name video.  My love borders on worship.

That being said, let’s state the obvious here: I am white.  So white, I’m practically clear.  So, when my girl and her crew of beautiful, powerful, black beret-ed dancers with real bodies and natural hair stomped onto the field,

I knew that (completely badass) moment wasn’t about me.  And that feeling can be a foreign one to those of us who are lucky enough in our lives to not be as marginalized as others – foreign to the point of uncomfortable to some.

But look, people.  If you want to love Beyonce in the iterations that don’t upset your delicate sensibilities (sexual being, mother, singer of empowering anthems, powerhouse dancer), you have to ask yourself why this particular version of her fierceness is challenging to you.  If you had no problem with ‘Run The World (Girls)’, why would this paean to the beauty and badassery of this particular version of girl power, black girl power, be any different?  Just because it’s not written about your specific corner of the world doesn’t mean that it is against you.  ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ wasn’t written because Van Morrison hated blue eyed men.  A crowd singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to someone else in the room isn’t doing it to take anything away from your big day.  It’s just that sometimes… it’s not about you.  Which is 100% okay.

Oh, and I *KNOW* you don’t want to be one of those jerks who, on one hand, want to strip the rights from the LGBTQ community, but on the other, think it’s ‘like, totally hot when chicks make out, heh heh’.  You can’t have it both ways.  And you shouldn’t want to!  It’s a beautiful world with tons of people who come from a million different backgrounds and places and peoples and you shouldn’t be afraid of any of them.  Beyonce is a fully formed, well rounded individual, and she has every right to celebrate every part of herself. If her doing that gives you the squicks, you need to take another look at why.  You should be cheering these ladies on with a ringing ‘YAS QUEEN!’

Because celebrating and supporting others, especially those who are different from you, just makes life richer and more beautiful – and examining where you struggle with your personal prejudices (we all have some) and working on getting past those issues is what being human is.  Or should be, anyway.

So, to sum it up, get in formation behind your fellow (wo)man – or get the hell out of the way.

 

11 Feb This entry was published on February 11, 2016 at 1:45 pm. It’s filed under Bitchin', Feeeeeeeeelings and tagged Beyonce, Feminism, Formation, Humanism, Prejudice, Racism, Super Bowl. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.