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Celeb News: Formation accused of insensitivity by black New Orleanians
Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 30,225
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Formation accused of insensitivity by black New Orleanians
Really interesting read:
http://www.slate.com/articles/double...ns_trauma.html
I'm not saying I agree with all of it but I think it's worth a read, to understand why some of these people are offended in a different way than what everyone has been seeing most of the backlash come from. Basically, they're saying that they feel she's kind of stealing some very important aspects of New Orleans black history and culture without respecting it and honoring it the way she should. They also feel she's exacerbating the trauma of Katrina by using some imagery that hits close to home for a lot of people, and kind of exploiting it in a way.
One main quote from the author is
Quote:
But all great artists imitate others. In some spaces, that’s called plagiarism. In others, appropriation. Can black people appropriate one another? I’ve never thought I’d come to this conclusion, but yes, we can—especially when you’re one of the most influential and powerful black women in the world. Especially when you take the cultural productions of a marginalized community and present them as your own. Especially when you capitalize off of their deaths. This is not giving people voice. It is stealing.
I’m not saying that no one can read “Formation” as a black girl Southern anthem. Blackness is not monolithic, and neither is U.S. black American Southernness. But for an artist to become relevant and political, must she perform against a backdrop of black tragedy?
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This is also interesting, a slightly different criticism from another black person born and raised in New Orleans. It goes into the detail of why the "Mix that negro with a creole" line is problematic:
http://www.colorlines.com/articles/j...ncés-formation
Again, not saying I 100% agree with this stuff since I don't come from the background that these people do, but I think it's interesting to read.
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 1,227
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Who cares Beyoncé can do what she wants
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Member Since: 5/3/2012
Posts: 42,099
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"You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation."
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 3,329
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Quote:
And Beyoncé has been co-opting New Orleans culture for years. Instead of inviting one of the original Kings of Bounce, DJ Jubilee, to perform the dances that he choreographed and created for “Get Me Bodied”—whose syncopated beat and lyrical formations were taken directly from his 1993 local New Orleans classic “Do the Jubilee All”—she presented this genre of music and dance as if it had been created in her own studio or Houston backyard.
But all great artists imitate others. In some spaces, that’s called plagiarism. In others, appropriation. Can black people appropriate one another? I’ve never thought I’d come to this conclusion, but yes, we can—especially when you’re one of the most influential and powerful black women in the world. Especially when you take the cultural productions of a marginalized community and present them as your own. Especially when you capitalize off of their deaths. This is not giving people voice. It is stealing.
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Member Since: 4/3/2011
Posts: 7,281
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doingthemost.com
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 25,476
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Member Since: 11/11/2010
Posts: 11,240
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I don't get my own community sometimes.
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Member Since: 9/13/2009
Posts: 22,181
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Member Since: 6/22/2011
Posts: 20,940
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First - her family is from New Orleans and she had a lot of family living there during Katrina
Second - you can't get upset about her celebrating her families background and where they come from and what she's mixed with
Third - she's talking about her culture and families culture, and for that person to say "I have a problem with what's she's mixed with..." Beyoncé has every right to say what's in here genes, u can't tell or force someone to feel guilty about that.
That's the problem with the black community, they consider light skin as a different race and it's not right.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 30,225
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Quote:
Originally posted by FreeBitch
doingthemost.com
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I don't think so  They have a right to feel that way if it hits close to home for them. They feel she's kind of appropriated their unique culture and exploited certain tragedies for her own gain.
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 10,527
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I've already seen this article clocked several times on the news and on Twitter. This is just someone, funnily enough, RUNNING to capitalize on Formation while the press is still hot.
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Member Since: 4/10/2012
Posts: 14,915
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Acknowledging Katrina doesn't really mean exploiting. I did not see any bad intentions with the way Bey did it.
As far as her feeling "triggered" because Bey acknowledged her Creole background. That's unfair. She is what she is and she has every right to be proud and celebrate it. Just because the author is dealing with issues with her own self-worth doesn't mean Bey can't love herself. She didn't say anything bad about people with dark skin or people who aren't Creole. They keep posting that still of Blue standing between the two dark skinned girls like it was really meant to be malicious.
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Banned
Member Since: 9/12/2011
Posts: 9,897
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Not this appropriation ******** again.  I don't like Beyonce at all, but she did nothing wrong! Nothing in the video and nothing at the HT.
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Member Since: 11/28/2011
Posts: 10,662
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I'm so glad Beyonce has effectively proven that appropriation is a ******** concept 
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 15,128
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They can stfu cuz they're just as moronic as the racist whites "boycotting" B.
These people just want to be on the defense for the sake of it if the blatant intent of the Formation video was lost on them.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 30,225
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Quote:
Originally posted by Toya
Acknowledging Katrina doesn't really mean exploiting. I did not see any bad intentions with the way Bey did it.
As far as her feeling "triggered" because Bey acknowledged her Creole background. That's unfair. She is what she is and she has every right to be proud and celebrate it. Just because the author is dealing with issues with her own self-worth doesn't mean Bey can't love herself. She didn't say anything bad about people with dark skin or people who aren't Creole. They keep posting that still of Blue standing between the two dark skinned girls like it was really meant to be malicious.
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True, I guess she's just frustrated that people don't know that about a lot of Creole people in history.
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Banned
Member Since: 3/5/2014
Posts: 1,298
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 30,225
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Quote:
Originally posted by Roman Holiday
They can stfu cuz they're just as moronic as the racist whites "boycotting" B.
These people just want to be on the defense for the sake of it if the blatant intent of the Formation video was lost on them.
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Some of you guys need to be a little more open minded and understanding to people's perspectives instead of throwing out the "they're wrong stfu". This is a unique perspective that I haven't seen publicized, and it's interesting. They aren't being "on the defense for the sake of it" at all....if you read the second article, the author is a big Bey fan and was stoked to watch it, even loved it at first...then kinda had some realizations about why she thought it was problematic. And even noted that something about Beyonce made her want to put those criticisms aside, but at the same time she felt bad that she was.
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Member Since: 8/6/2012
Posts: 8,639
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Also this from a black trans perspective:
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MY (APPARENTLY) OBLIGATORY RESPONSE TO ‘FORMATION’: IN LIST FORM
1. I have actively avoided saying anything about Beyoncé’s new song and video. I don’t think they are interesting, important or deserving of my commentary. That as a Black, queer person I have, in the last week, been expected—and, at moments, obligated—to respond to them is insulting and infuriating.
2. Big Freedia is a force. She was used in this project, barely cited and never seen. Black, trans women have given more to popular culture than almost anyone realizes, while they continue to endure inconceivable violence in obscurity. Sampling their style for aesthetic purposes without attaching their faces is not revolutionary. It isn’t even original.
3. As other queer, southern forces have pointed out this week, Hurricane Katrina is not a sexy backdrop. It was a moment in which this country watched a city of poor Black people drown and stood idly by. It was—eerily like the halftime show—a demonstration of our nation’s capacity for mistaking passive consumption of Black struggle with active participation in Black struggle.
4. Straight, cis people saying “slay” falls on my ear in exactly the same way as white people saying “trill” and “fleek.”
5. Bill Gates isn’t just a rich white man. He is one of free market capitalism’s most powerful advocates. His foundation has supported multiple projects that undermine unions, affordable education and public schools. His wealth has worked to privatize and gentrify Black communities across this country. Lyrically lauding his achievements is at best thoughtless, at worst sinister.
6. The appropriation of queer and trans genius by straight, cis people is real. As a queer Black person I feel betrayed by straight, cis, Black people who are celebrating this video instead of defending queer art and culture from corporate ravaging.
7. Backup dancers in pseudo Black Panthar garb rang as a flippant, even exploitative play on dated Black power movements. It was an insult to our ancestors, and an inability to recognize the current face of Black power.
8. The racist mayor of Chicago has yet to resign. The people of Flint continue to pay for poisoned water, and face a growingly unchecked police state. The officer who killed Quintonio Legreir is suing his estate for emotional distress. Every new think piece about a music video—including this one—deflect energy and attention away from the demanding work of abolition, adding to our complacency with the structures bearing down on us.
9. Misogyny and racism are real. Beyoncé faces these things. She’ll be okay. She has private security, personal transportation and a ton of money. She doesn’t need us to defend her. But we need to defend each other.
10. Celebration and distraction are not the same thing. Taking time to step back from our difficult realities to rejoice, heal and love together is crucial. Investing in corporate fantasies and confusing them with our movements is detrimental.
11. The image of backup dancers holding a sign for Mario Woods was made possible because Black Lives Matter activists ran onto the field and handed the sign to them. The closest thing to an actual solidarity statement happened because local organizers broke through the spectacle of the Super Bowl, not Beyoncé.
12. Non-Black people cheering the corporatizing of Black power may not understand the urgency of the moment we are in, the need to stay vigilant against the diluting of our movement, and the implications for Black communities if our efforts are overtaken.
13. There is a long history of Black celebrities advocating for Black movements. Eartha Kitt, Muhammad Ali, Lena Horne are folks we think of first as athletes and movie stars, yet who used their celebrity to publicly defy the state and advocate for Black communities, at times at great personal risk, and to the detriment of their careers. Do not compare them to Beyoncé basking in the publicity of a halftime show.
14. Beyonce appeared in a straight-up racist video about a week before ‘Formation’ came out. Yes, anti-Blackness is a real issue in Desi communities. So is orientalism in Black communities. Complex though the interplay, the outcome is the irresponsible treatment of South Asian culture and people. There is nothing defensible about that, and nothing new.
15. The Super Bowl—the same as any high corporate festival—displaces the poor, and leads to heightened policing. This year’s Super Bowl was actively protested by San Francisco’s homeless community. Black queer organizers who shut down the Bay Bridge in January made active connections between the revenue generated for the city by the Super Bowl, and the need to interrupt its flow. An advocate for Black power would have refused to perform, help shut down the event, or raise up the demands of community. Instead—I don’t at all doubt—Beyoncé was invited in no small part to dissuade the protests city officials feared would disrupt the event.
16. Beyoncé is light-skinned, skinny, cis, has a whole fleet of make up artists, personal trainers and professional photographers. Her team has relied on white passing to bolster her image before, and ‘Formation’ had plenty of its own colorism issues. You don’t need her to tell you to love your nose.
17. Beyoncé is in final negotiations to perform in Tel Aviv, even as a growing number of Black musicians, actors and writers refuse to appear in Israel in solidarity with the people of Palestine. This decision is in no way incongruous with Beyoncé’s political past–including her halftime performance. It should not surprise anyone.
18. If I learned one thing this week, it is that we are starving to see ourselves in power. We yearn to celebrate the vision of it–even when we know it is a ploy, a hologram. Our hunger, no matter how potent, no matter how righteous, cannot transfigure pop stars into revolutionaries. It cannot supplement community power with what it manages to extract from corporate media.
19. In no way is this pop cultural propaganda about an artists’ political growth, for Beyoncé is not an actual artist. It is about corporations finding creative ways to profit off a popular movement. It is an affront to Black organizing, and an offensive caricature of our history.
20. The state has many tools to break up a movement. Scripted messaging and infiltration are key ones. If we invite corporations to take over our movements, look to network television to instruct us in our successes, we give up our power without so much as a fight. We hand it over to the exact bodies that are trying to destroy it.
21. Beyoncé is a logo. Beyoncé is a commodity. Beyoncé is a production. Beyoncé is a distraction. Beyoncé is a ruse. Beyoncé does not actually exist.
22. You–not her–are the Black visionary, the budding potential for revolution.
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Member Since: 8/9/2012
Posts: 18,572
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