My Extended Thoughts on Lemonade
So, I wrote my thoughts on the visual album Lemonade by Beyoncé on twitter, but 140 characters doesn’t cut it even when you thread tweets. Here I’m going to expand on the thoughts I had. First thing’s first though, this is not a “thinkpiece”. If it were, I’d be getting paid handsomely to write this. This is just a Black woman having Black thoughts and feelings about a Black album by another Black woman.
What interested me most about the movie accompanying the album was the different titles for each section. Intuition, Denial, Anger, Apathy, Emptiness, Accountability, Reformation, Forgiveness, and Resurrection. I came up with two theories as to what this could symbolize; Black women’s relationship with America and Black women’s relationship with men.
To start off, let’s examine the titles in relation to Black women’s relationship with America and men.
Intuition: You know for a fact in the back of your mind there’s something wrong, but you don’t have the proof and people think you’re crazy. They call your accusations baseless, but you know there’s something to what you’re feeling. This ties in nicely with…
Denial: You so desperately want to believe everyone around because the truth is too much to handle, so say that there’s nothing wrong and you ignore/deny what’s happening. Denial could also be the person who wronged you (or the US) denying there’s a problem (they’re not cheating/there is no injustice in the system) and saying everything’s okay in an attempt to placate you.
Anger: You see the truth of what’s happening and you’re pissed. You rage, you fight, you scream, you cry, you do anything you can to let it out and let everyone know just how you feel.
Apathy: After a while, the situation seems futile so you just want to give up. What is the use in fighting? Why keep going if nothing’s gonna change?
Emptiness: Apathy can easily flow into emptiness. Once you stop yourself from feeling the hurt, the joy and the laughter go away too. You’re left with a hole inside yourself that nothing can fill.
Accountability: This one is sort of obvious. You and others start to hold that person (or the country) who did you wrong accountable for their actions. You want them to answer for what they did wrong. It could also mean that the person (country) who did you wrong takes accountability for their own actions. They finally acknowledge that they did you wrong and there was a problem and they take steps to rectify that.
Forgiveness: This one is self-explanatory. In order to truly move on from the hurt and pain, you forgive. You don’t forgive to make them feel better, you forgive for yourself so you can heal and move on. Notice that nothing was said about forgetting. You don’t forget what was done so it never happens again.
Resurrection: Out of all of the hurt, the pain, and the hard work done to forgive and truly fix the situation, both you and the person (country) who did you wrong are reborn into something new. Hopefully into something better.
What got me thinking that this could be about Black women’s relationship to the country was Beyoncé having the mothers of Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Oscar Grant in the video holding pictures of their children. That was a poignant moment. They were wronged by the US in the worst of ways; their children were taken from them by vigilantes or those sworn to “serve and protect.” We want true accountability for what was done, but the US is still in the denial stage. They refuse to admit there is even a problem.
Another thing that triggered my thoughts was the quote by Malcolm X that was used in the movie. He says that the Black woman is the most disrespected, unprotected, and neglected person in America. He is right. We are routinely disrespected by the men who claim to love us, unprotected when those men and the very country we live in harm us, and issues pertaining to us are neglected daily.
What I absolutely love most is how through every song, every visual, and even the simple section titles and title of the visual album itself, she showed the vulnerability and resilience of Black women. The “strong Black woman” stereotype hinders us in ways we are loathe to admit. It allows others to imagine that we don’t feel or that abuse and neglect doesn’t phase us. We’re expected to always be at the front lines of any conflict, always showing up for others but neglecting our own well being. With this visual album, Beyoncé gave us a place to convene with one another and heal. She showed the world that Black women do have emotions, we do hurt, we do feel pain, but we will persevere because we must. We will always turn the lemons that life and the world hands us into lemonade.
This visual album could be about one of those things, both of them, or neither. It’s entirely possible I’m reading too much into this, but I think all of the images and soundbites chosen where chosen for a specific reason. She had a very carefully crafted message she wanted to get out to the world, and she truly delivered.
