medase

To my future son:

First, I will teach you how to swim. You will need it. I know that the current of the world may one day be stronger than your mother’s love

                     but that’s the thing about waves, the water has perfected the art of letting go

so I will wait for the tide to return what’s lost, catch him in the net that is my arms and remind him of the

                                              young boy he once was before strangers taught him what it meant to be a 

                                              man.

                            And all the while I will hope:

hope that his heart was not lost at sea, drowning me and all who lived there, with it

                           hope that his truths are not blocked by the sand in his mouth, forcing his pain into grit

hope that his spine did not turn to the rocks they were pushed up against, robbing him of the ability to lean on another

          I will be your lighthouse, brightest in the darkest moments

First, I will teach you how to swim,

                                        Tread lightly, and when you re-gain the strength

 you confused for weakness,      

Last week musician Beyonce put the internet on fire by dropping a music video for her new single ‘Formation’. With black pride lines such as ‘I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros, I like my negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils’ and ‘I got hot sauce in my bag,swag’ Beyonce subtly makes political statements on black beauty and culture. For example, hair is a very political black feature especially given that the media would often comment on her daughter’s hair by referring to it as ‘uncombed’ and ‘nappy’ (very racialized terms). Similarly, her ‘negro nose’ is also a prominent black feature that was historically used to differentiate black people from white people and seen as ugly. As for the hot sauce, paying homage to symbols that would be referred to derogatorily as ‘ghetto’ signifies Beyonce reclaiming aspects of black culture and forgoing respectability politics. Furthermore, the depiction of the black clergy and a painting of an Asantehene (the king of the Asante Kingdom in modern-day Ghana) evoked the power of black spirituality and strength. Finally, the striking symbolism of Southern culture, given its especially racially turbulent history, made the statements of black pride and the black American experience even more impactful.

 However, Beyonce’s resistance was more than just skin deep. With scenes of a young black boy dancing in front of police officers only for them to ironically put their hands up and surrender speaks to how young black boys are often stripped of their innocence and childhood (a sentiment that is proven by how victims of police brutality are often described to as ‘beasts’ or ‘men’ when they’re usually not even out of college- as we saw in the testimony of Darren Wilson that we saw in class). She alluded to police brutality and state violence against black bodies again when at the end of the music video, in a setting reminiscent of New Orleans circa Hurricane Kartina, she is seen sinking on top of a police car. Hurricane Katrina itself is significant as it disproportionately affected lower class and black people in New Orleans, yet did not receive as much state aid as it should have. For example, this famously prompted Kanye West to proclaim that George Bush hated black people.

 Yet this song in particular is for black women, calling us to be unapologetic for our magic, get in formation and band together in solidarity against various systems and vessels of oppression e.g racism, sexism, homophobia and the government. She also practiced what she was preaching by collaborating with Big Freedia, a black self-identified gay male who often dresses like a woman and speaks out on our obsession with a gender binary.  In the words of Big Freedia, they ‘came to slay!’.

 All in all, Beyoncé uses her words, symbols and images and her influence due to fame to make an important statement about the resilience of black culture, black feminism and black queerness in the face of violence and prejudice. In relation to the text, this visually represents some aspects of the Crenshaw article, primarily the consequences that black women have to face due to the intersection of their race and gender.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrCHz1gwzTo

Cross - Poem by Langston Hughes (via jessehimself)