You might have missed this symbol of black wealth in Beyoncé’s “Formation”
Early black social organizers wore Ottoman headgear
By Asher Kohn
If you’ve already contributed to the 13 million views (and counting!) of Beyoncé’s “Formation,” you may have noticed the weird hats on the gentlemen flanking her at 1:12 in the video.
To the right of Beyoncé is a man dressed like Baron Samedi, a Haitian Voodoo spirit in a top hat and 19th-century frock coat. Left of Queen Bey’s bobbing head is … well, hold on. What’s a black man doing wearing a Moroccan fez? One possible answer is that the shot nods at black history.
The red cap and green moss are the only colors in the entire Southern Gothic setting. (And director Melina Matsoukas doesn’t do anything unintentionally.) The man in the fez is a symbol of worldliness and solidarity in the post-Civil War South.
Black families who wanted to buy a home or open a business in the early 1900s could rarely rely on Jim Crow-era bank loans. They could instead turn to mutual aid societies, groups like New Orleans’ famous “krewes.” The first was an Afrocentric group called the Zulu Social Aid Society and Pleasure Club, but by the 1930s groups winking at Islam, with names like the Krewe of Alla or the Krewe of Babylon, had elaborate floats in the Mardi Gras parades.
Allusions to Islam allowed members (no matter their ethnicity) to claim an exotic justification for esoteric practices. Krewe members were almost always devout Christians, but they dressed like Ottoman royalty: black suits, red fezzes and never — ever — a tie.
Mutual aid societies were also part of white culture in the 1960s. Even The Flintstones had their prehistoric Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo. But while white Shriners in fezzes look fuddy-duddy today (there’s even a TV Tropes entry for Brotherhood of Funny Hats), in African American communities the fez is still a symbol of wealth and connection — particularly in New Orleans, where dressing up with your best friends during Mardi Gras is a citywide holiday.
So if, in the “Formation” video, the mystical Baron Samedi represents magical strength, the fez symbolizes earthly wealth. In this Southern Gothic setting, Beyoncé is demonstrating that she has both at her beck and call. In just 16 seconds of video, she uses these two men as props to demonstrate all of her supernatural and material power.
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