“The presence of evil was something to be first
recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.”
The critics have spoken. They have debated and
pontificated. They have analyzed and weighed in. Beyonce- feminist or not? Beyonce
– Self-actualized woman living the dream or pawn in the capitalist, patriarchal
society we find our ourselves in?
My question is: what if she is both?
What if she lives in the tension of the world
as it should be: where we as woman can be who we choose to be while operating
in the world as it is where we are scrutinized for every decision, every
choice, every mistake and misstep.
And what if this discourse is a distraction
from the reality? Beyonce leads a life many of us only can dream of, and the
reason we, her loyal fans flock to her faithfully is because we too want to
believe that we can have whatever we want. If it’s a husband or not. A successful
career or not. Beyonce for many of us represents the ability to choose. To
chart our own life’s path free from the gaze of a society that tells us we can
do it how we want to, but then ostracizes our choices.
But more than that for me is something bigger
I want to process with you all. I watched Toni Morrison and Junot Diaz at the
NYPL. Toni Morrison and Beyonce what do they have in common? Well Junot Diaz
posed a question to her about her legendary book Sula and the lens or commentary
it provided the world about Female Friendships.
I have read Sula several times and in one poignant
moment that remains my favorite part is when they describe the connectedness of
the girls. I believe they talk about two heads, one body. This is intimacy here
people, one we don’t often see depicted in popular culture. Sula sleeping with
Jude does not shatter that connectedness, it survives despite it. Reconciliation
is not the aim; it is the realization that friendship and sisterhood transcends
all of the mess of life and the muck of romantic relationships. In the end, as
TLC put it “what about your friends”?
Female friendship in the novel is about an emotional
intimacy that even male dominated culture and infidelity cannot destroy. It
defines the construct of women as competition and catty vying for the attention
of a man. And although it doesn’t ever
repair itself we know Nel and Sula grieve the lost of each other.
The conversation about Beyonce being a feminist
is a distracting one. It gets us off course with the real discussion we should
be having. How have we as woman been indoctrinated to critique and compete with
one another? (I realize this may be a generalization) How does this lack of reverence
for female friendship hinder us from addressing patriarchy and white supremacy
head on?
I think the real feminist act would be to
stop squabbling over who’s in and whose out and begin the process of unlearning
that which has continued to keep many of us in shackles. We define ourselves in
proximity to men, in proximity to power and if don’t do this than we have
arrived and we sit back, rest on our morals and become the judge about how
pro-woman progressive everyone else is.
What is the revolutionary act is to allow
each woman to choose for herself her own course and then to love her anyway?
More than whether or not she is a feminist
she is self-proclaimed woman and today that is good enough for me.
Beyonce teaches us that female friendship is
the crux of the movement. We liberate ourselves, we get free on our own and whether
or not someone measures up or looks at the world just like us, we choose to
love. I am not naïve to the
structural and systemic ways, which women are locked out, but I think we need
to ask, is how to we use love and freedom and choice to widen the table and
begin the work?
So in the words of Toni Morrison “She
had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover
that a lover was not a comrade and could never be - for a woman. And that no
one would ever be that version of herself, which she sought to reach out to and
touch with an ungloved hand. There was only her own mood and whim, and if that
was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it
and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was.”
Let others become intimate with their own
selves. Labels don’t last. Loving the reflection of yourself you see in others,
Deciding to be a friend is the most radical act we can take. And the first
step. No movement work had ever been done absent of love for people and a
desire to translate that love into the work of justice.
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