Formation For All

I don’t even know where to begin with this Beyoncé video. From the moment I saw this most splendiferous video, I have to admit I gained a new respect for her. I already admired her body of work which includes her music, her music videos, her concerts, her documentary and her love of family, but I have always noticed that she doesn’t say much on what she really feels about political or polarizing issues. I understood that, and I got that she had a wide fan base and she didn’t want to exclude anyone with her personal views, and the more she kept her opinions to herself, the more her fame grew in combination with all her hard work and creativity.

Every now and then though, we would get a glimpse of her true thoughts on an incident: supporting the families of teens brutally killed based wholly on another’s stereotyping, donating to one black cause or another — but I never heard her speak on any of it. Then this video comes along and I am blown away at the thought and care she put into letting her fans and the world know that she does care about these issues. I rejoiced not just for me, but for her too because finally, after closing herself off and being safe for the sake of her image, she was able to free herself and let folks know how she truly felt about issues that plague black families.

However, when I saw the video, I did know instinctively that portions of her fan base would have an issue with her love of her black self and that portions of them would feel excluded, and they would feel they wouldn’t relate. This saddened me to an extent, because the song has many relatable factors even if you are not black, and let me just say that black folks or any ethnic group for that matter, have related to music that was not about them for many centuries. I love the song “Sweet Home Alabama” and I have never even been there, but I do know what it is to love my home, and I love the melody and the drawl of the singer. The first thing I love about a song is the melody. Before I even hear the words, I fall for the beat, then I listen to the lyrics; sometimes the lyrics are offensive to women and I am like, I really love that song, but the lyrics killed it for me.

The beat of “Formation” alone is hard, then comes the lyrics where she references hurricane Katrina visually, and yes, she may be focusing on the lack of response of the government to the black areas, but hell, if you were present in New Orleans for Katrina and you were black or white, you could relate to some aspect of that. She references her heritage and where her parents are from, and if you are from those areas you can surely relate to that despite what color you are, or simply be proud of where you are from for that matter. I am not from those places and I can most decidedly relate to that love of heritage. Granted, she references afros and Jackson Five nostrils, but God damn, can she just show love for her people?

I mean, damn, we don’t hear that often and not from people of major influence, so us having that doesn’t mean you can’t love the song too. Then comes the part when she sings about getting in formation, and she is encouraging us ladies to grind for what we want and slay like she does; she’s saying if I can do it, so can you, come on. At this point the video displays a wide variety of African descent ethnicities in her back up dancers. The song is so uplifting, I find it hard to see how anyone can have a problem with it just because she acknowledges the struggle black people have had and are still going through, and she is showing love for her people.

If you love your people and their struggle, then you should relate to that as well. Unless of course, your people never struggled and you feel entitled to dismissing others’ struggles. The black struggle is a human one, because all peoples struggled at some point in their history, and if you can’t relate to love of self, then that’s a problem that not even Beyoncé can solve for you.