Speak Up and Out: Be the Change in Lives
By: Grace Dellapa
Lemonade, Beyoncé’s 12 track album released on April 23, 2016, is packed with powerful imagery showcasing Beyoncé’s determination to stand up for gender equality for women and black rights (especially for women as she is a feminist). Speaking out is consistently a main theme depicted in authors’ stories such as bell hooks’ essay Moving Beyond Pain, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Ghansah’s “The Weight” essay and certain poems in Claudia Rankine’s book, Citizen. Beyoncé, someone with millions of white fans, decided to stand alongside her black femmes and create an entire visual album respectfully representing them. “Formation,” the first song released from the album, declares the importance of owning one’s identity as well as stresses themes of black power and community. Throughout her music she tries to show that how both she and others don’t/shouldn’t need universal approval because only you need to know how amazing you are. In her lyrics for “Formation”, Beyoncé asserts her love of the fact that she is genuinely, unapologetically black. She is proud of being black and is not afraid to say it. She wants/is trying to get others to be just as confident with being the race they are. The book Citizen writes about how Serena Williams stands up for herself in tennis, known to others as a “white man’s game”. Incorrect calls were being made by referees against her just because of her color. As a result, Serena lashes out to try to fix this inequality issue. Many start ending up backing her up and supporting her and finally having her feel like an American.
As far as gender goes, females have all these expectations to be a certain way and achieve certain things but rarely get much acknowledgment or appreciation for their work. Men, on the other hand, aren’t raised to know their expectations. This discrimination causes a major separation between genders. In Moving Beyond Pain, hooks mentions how men are a burden to women. She states that “Even the wealthiest professional woman can be ‘brought down’ by being in a relationship where she longs to be loved and is constantly lied to.” The Lemonade video portrays exactly this — woman empowerment. Woman empowerment was shown in Beloved when Sethe had to make a terrible life decision which was prompted by slavery. Sethe loves her daughter so much that out of love she would murder her daughter so she wouldn’t have to go through the pain of slavery. It takes a lot to make a tragic decision like that but she was only wanting to look out for her family. A relevant quote to Lemonade from Beloved is “Freeing yourself was one thing. Claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” The Lemonade video, especially in the song “Formation” Beyoncé made known that she is providing a layer of vulnerability inextricably linked to her identity of who she is and how African Americans are people too.
Beyoncé was able to visualize and show the importance for people to stand up, fight for black rights and to stop police brutality in her video. The Lemonade video shows this through a young boy dressed in all black and wearing a hoodie dancing to the music in front of a row of police officers dressed in riot gear. She wants the officers to respond in kindly manner and hold up their hands meaning they surrender. After this scene the camera cuts to a wall that shows the words, “stop shooting us” spray-painted on it. In the US for the past several years black men, women, and children have been killed by the police in controversial circumstances. Ghansah’s essay “The Weight” in the book The Fire This Time backs that belief up as he also believed in fighting back when being attacked and in advocating that African Americans in the U.S should take what is rightful to them. These are just some examples of people speaking out just like how Martin Luther King Jr. did in his “I Have a Dream” speech.
A woman should be able to be treated with the same respect as a man and a person of color (especially black women) should be respected the same way as whites are. In the end they are still human.
See Beyoncé’s powerful speech at a Hillary Clinton Rally: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=W5k9uIg1p1U
