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Wells Fargo bank for The New York Times, 2017

The thing is, there aren’t “Black parts” in Lemonade. The whole thing is Black. The complete project is Black. I mean just watching the whole project 99% of the people in Lemonade were Black people and like 97% were Black women. 

There’s no picking out the Blackness from this. That’s the thing about race for Black people: we can’t separate ourselves from our blackness. It’s a 24/7 thing. So yeah actually you should feel more that strange about “picking out the black parts” because the notion that that’s even possible is offensive. (I recognize that is not your intent but I’m just being real with you.) Just because she isn’t saying the phrase “Black woman” in every lyric, doesn’t mean she stopped addressing or focusing on Black woman.

Now, you can sympathy and relate to the feelings of being cheated on or wanting to own your womanhood. That’s not something restricted only to Black women. Obviously cheating happens regardless of race and there’s women in every race. But Bey is not the first female entertainer to address cheating or to celebrate her womanhood. There’s a bunch of while female entertainers who have done this and continue to do this. So you just have to recognize that in this one moment, this one thing does not involve you. And you have to be okay with that.

You finding those small connections that seem to relate to you is natural. That’s just gonna happen in some cases. You can also admire and respect Bey for her work. You can like Lemonade for all the greatest that it is. But you gotta get rid of this notion that Black women separate their identities like “black over here” and “woman over there”. And you gotta understand that sometimes, things just aren’t meant for you.