Is Beyonce A Propagandist? Thoughts on Beyonce Bowl, Patriotism, and Suckled-gate
Black TikTok's Biggest Food Fight Ever
Beyonce means so much to people that they’ll go to war over the definition of what she symbolizes. There’s actually a war over what she symbolizes going on right now on TikTok. There’s been no literal violence (so far) but it has been as chaotic as a food fight but instead of food we have big ideas flying around willy-nilly. The last few weeks on Black Tiktok has given us the largest and wildest intellectual foodfight I have ever seen on that app. (It’s kinda like when you get near the end of a movie and they have everyone engage in one big fight but don’t make me talk about the end of Tiktok because I might cry.) Anyway, this Beyonce/Hannah thing went from academic to ratchet then dove into biracialism, colorism, eugenics and more. I’m gonna tell you the wild story and dive into ideas around Beyonce and Cowboy Carter and the challenge of Black patriotism. Also I spoke to Hannah, the person who started all of this.
It all began on Christmas Day with the massively-anticipated Beyonce Bowl when our Queen performed a whole medley of songs from Cowboy Carter. She was resplendent in glittering white, riding a white horse and rocking out in front of hundreds of dancers in white. Many of them had an American flag in their pocket or a white sash with red and blue outlines. At times the group danced atop a rug that had the stripes of the flag. There was a lot of red, white and blue. The aesthetic was very Americana. Many people loved it. Then Hannah, a Black Beyonce fan, made a Tiktok calling Beyonce “a propagandist.” Hannah is an intellectual who makes a lot of political videos but you can see in the video below that her tone isn’t critical. This is the video by Hannah that started it all.
It wasn’t meant as a condemnation but calling Bey a “propagandist” seemed like a critique to a lot of people, and critiquing Beyonce is triggering to a lot of people. So a lot of people freaked out. In a blink there were 100 videos where people were holding virtual pitchforks and saying, Girl, what? From there things only got crazier.