If you haven’t seen the SNL video called, “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black,” YouTube it now.
Spoiler: A woman watches Beyoncé’s new video for “Formation.” She’s terrified by her harsh realization: I think Beyoncé is black.
Mad chaos. By the end of the video, another white woman goes apeshit when she thinks her white daughter is now black, only to find out (Thank God) it’s not her little girl but the black child from next door.
“The horror. The horror.”
If you saw Beyoncé’s portion of the halftime show, or simply lived in the world after she put down the mic, I don’t need to tell you that SNL’s clip was apropos of the status quo that week. Her performance of “Formation” with her backup dancers sporting afros and dressed like Black Panthers, fists in the air, had people up in arms. Pundits went wild. Giuliani took time out of his busy schedule to weigh in: Ridiculous. Others called for more Coldplay.
And, then, at the Grammys, Kendrick Lamar had the stones to take the stage in chains and a prison uniform that changed to some kind of African dress that turned back into the prison uniform.
Huh?
Ladies and gentlemen: a black light.
And he stood in front of Africa, but it said Compton.
What?
When Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry” busted out its hook, I jumped off the couch and accidentally danced on my dog. Best part, though? When a camera caught a white lady looking to be, roughly, three seconds away from reaching down underneath her seat to clutch her Judith Leiber clutch, shaped, no doubt, like some kind of sea fowl.
Carol G tweeted: I’m so over Kendrick performance! Every race needs to take accountability for their actions and stop blaming another race for everything [sad face emoji].
Forget Giuliani and his one-word response. Carol G’s so upset she had to take up space with a sad face emoji instead of making Kendrick possessive.
I’m not surprised by these reactions, nor am I surprised by the reactions of people who applauded the musicians. I am fascinated, though, that people seem to be more offended by the performances of the songs, the images surrounding the words, than by the words themselves, as if the staged dramatization of the lyrics is more dramatic (or traumatic) than the lyrics.
Perhaps this goes back to the way we learn language. We start with picture books. We can’t read the words beneath the pictures; but then Mom tells us a word and eventually, we somehow know the picture and the word are sort of one and the same. I’m sure the “the somehow” involves neurons and Noam Chomsky.
When I have to come up with my own images to accompany someone else’s words, like when I’m reading alone, it’s way scarier than when someone chooses those images for me. For example, the Jack I pictured when reading The Shining made Nicholson look like a pussy. But, maybe, for some of us, it’s all scarier through someone else’s eyes. You have to see what they see in their words. You have to envision their vision. Then the shit’s real.
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 2, 2016.