Formation: A Written Revue

I was told today that I’m flailing in my whiteness by a well-meaning professor, who read me and my hyper-aware/prone-to-over-correction-in-the-face-of-critique tendencies just like I read JSTOR articles.  He is accurate on some deep levels we won’t get into here.  But there is a time and a place for being like “Hello, I’m white, let me shut up”… and the preliminary genius circulating the interwebs on Beyonce’s new “Formation” is one of those times.  I could gush about how much I loved it, how it gave me chills, and try to explain allusions on allusions to you…  

Baby hair has two meanings y’all.  And Blue Ivy is more confident in herself than I ever have been… #rolemodel

But there are some people who are doing that much better… and I, the little white girl, am going to shut up and pass those pieces along:

1. “For once, you can’t remix, replicate it, or swipe it with a fleek, slay, or yaaaaas.  The message is clear as day: ​Black People are not erasable. Black Culture moves mountains. Black Women are beautiful, as is. It is what it is.“

2. “Beyoncé don’t give no fucks about your Saturday afternoon. Which is to say–as Big Freedia’s voice says in Beyoncé’s new song, “Formation“–“[She] did not come to play with you hoes. [She] came to slay, bitch.“

3. “In Formation, Beyonce positions herself at the center of the African cosmogram, between the living and the dead.”

4. “With that opening image, I was reminded of my “Post-Katrina Stress Disorder,” a condition akin to PTSD that many of us who lived through Katrina (and the aftermath) experience when it’s brought up nonchalantly in conversation. Of course, I told my friend this. He immediately texted me back: “Oh sorry I didn’t mean to trigger, I was just hype about Blue Ivy. You subtly just taught me a lesson in being more sensitive. I was so excited Bey was in your home I didn’t actually think about the way in which it was being portrayed.“

5. “If all you saw was Beyoncé in the middle of overturned houses ‘wading in the water’ and your reaction was, “oh my god, how could she capitalize on Katrina? How tasteless!” then this video was not made for you. That means you are also probably someone who had to Urbandictionary.com “Bama,” thought “bitch” only had one meaning, and got confused by Beyoncé’s use of “babyhair” twice in the same sentence. That also probably means you are someone who doesn’t, and shouldn’t be, using the term Negro, because this is the first time you heard the word “slay” in a sense that ain’t got shit to do with any type of dragons.“

6. “Race was brought in because Beyonce was brought in,” Williams said. “And brace yourself. You might want to sit down for this. But Beyoncé is black.“

• beyonce
• formation