![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I don’t care about the Superbowl – so much so that I don’t really know who actually played in it (I’m assuming it’s the Cowboys and the Broncos – they’re in it pretty much every year, right?). But I do find it hilarious that (1) Coldplay was the halftime headliner and (2) they got upstaged by Beyonce.
And I wouldn’t even know about that except that Beyonce’s act has apparently upset Rudy Giuliani, Rush Limbaugh and the poor lambs at Fox News for being all militaristic and black and stuff.
Which for some reason made me think of the other time a prominent black R&B superstar made a sociopolitical album with a military-fashion look.
Okay, it’s not the same thing exactly. But I suspect the reason we didn’t see the same level of freakout over Janet’s look was that Fox News didn’t exist in 1989.
Anyway, I can’t top what Jessica Williams has already said about this.
I will add that I find it grimly hilarious that Fox News creatures took Beyonce to task for the message in a song that they claimed they couldn’t even understand the words:
It’s kind of like: “I can’t understand a word of ‘Louie Louie', but I know it’s obscene!”
You could argue that the Super Bowl is no place for political statements. On the other hand, three Republican Super PACs (for Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio) ran TV spots during the game, and even the non-political ads ended up being politicized to varying degrees. So in this age where everything is political, it seems churlish to single out Beyonce for doing it.
And to be honest, given the current situation, I don’t blame Beyonce for using the Superbowls as a platform to speak against racism. It’s a conversation that America desperately needs to have, and one that at least a certain portion of white America is desperately trying to avoid, or pretend is unnecessary, or pretend the conversation yr trying to start is really about something else (i.e. when #BlackLivesMatter says “We don’t want white cops to shoot unarmed black kids without accountability”, Rudy Giuliani and Peter King hear, “Fuck the police, kill all cops, kill Whitey”). When the people on the other side don’t want to listen to what you have to say (and indeed see no reason to come to the table), it’s necessary to use an amplifier. The same rationale informed and drove Martin Luther King’s protests in the 1960s. Beyonce is no MLK, but she’s got a huge fan base, a national audience, and a microphone, and she would really like for white police officers to stop shooting unarmed black kids – what would you do?
You may question her use of Black Panther fashion imagery (not least since discussions about the Black Panthers on both sides tend to be oversimplified), but you can’t deny she’s started a conversation – even if the conversation on the other side of the table mostly (and predictably) ranges from simplistic to dumb. But that’s not on Beyonce.
The revolution will be televised,
This is dF
And I wouldn’t even know about that except that Beyonce’s act has apparently upset Rudy Giuliani, Rush Limbaugh and the poor lambs at Fox News for being all militaristic and black and stuff.
Which for some reason made me think of the other time a prominent black R&B superstar made a sociopolitical album with a military-fashion look.
Okay, it’s not the same thing exactly. But I suspect the reason we didn’t see the same level of freakout over Janet’s look was that Fox News didn’t exist in 1989.
Anyway, I can’t top what Jessica Williams has already said about this.
I will add that I find it grimly hilarious that Fox News creatures took Beyonce to task for the message in a song that they claimed they couldn’t even understand the words:
“I couldn’t really make out what Beyoncé was saying,” host Brian Kilmeade added after the show aired some footage of her performance. “But at the end, we find out Beyoncé dressed up in a tribute to the Black Panthers, went to a Malcolm X formation. And the song, the lyrics, which I couldn’t make out a syllable, were basically telling cops to stop shooting blacks!”
It’s kind of like: “I can’t understand a word of ‘Louie Louie', but I know it’s obscene!”
You could argue that the Super Bowl is no place for political statements. On the other hand, three Republican Super PACs (for Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio) ran TV spots during the game, and even the non-political ads ended up being politicized to varying degrees. So in this age where everything is political, it seems churlish to single out Beyonce for doing it.
And to be honest, given the current situation, I don’t blame Beyonce for using the Superbowls as a platform to speak against racism. It’s a conversation that America desperately needs to have, and one that at least a certain portion of white America is desperately trying to avoid, or pretend is unnecessary, or pretend the conversation yr trying to start is really about something else (i.e. when #BlackLivesMatter says “We don’t want white cops to shoot unarmed black kids without accountability”, Rudy Giuliani and Peter King hear, “Fuck the police, kill all cops, kill Whitey”). When the people on the other side don’t want to listen to what you have to say (and indeed see no reason to come to the table), it’s necessary to use an amplifier. The same rationale informed and drove Martin Luther King’s protests in the 1960s. Beyonce is no MLK, but she’s got a huge fan base, a national audience, and a microphone, and she would really like for white police officers to stop shooting unarmed black kids – what would you do?
You may question her use of Black Panther fashion imagery (not least since discussions about the Black Panthers on both sides tend to be oversimplified), but you can’t deny she’s started a conversation – even if the conversation on the other side of the table mostly (and predictably) ranges from simplistic to dumb. But that’s not on Beyonce.
The revolution will be televised,
This is dF
