Beyoncé’s new single “Formation” and her Super Bowl halftime performance have had people all a-buzz these last couple weeks. The response has ranged from calling the new song the “woke anthem of 2016” to calling for a Beyoncé boycott (how would one even accomplish that??).
I read a blog post a few days after the performance that celebrated the new single, but part of it bothered me. In her Huffington Post piece “’Formation’ Doesn’t Include Me. And That’s Just Fine,” Kate Forristall writes about the incredible importance and impact of Beyoncé’s performance of “Formation” at the Super Bowl. You can read the article here.
However, in her article, she urges white people to “stop singing along—to ‘Formation,’ to Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright,’ to any song that has the n-word or that celebrates blackness in a way we will never understand.”
While I could be misinterpreting, I hope what she meant was that white people should not pretend that we could ever fully understand the cultural, historical, and emotional context of a song like that. I hope what she meant was that white people should not sing along obliviously. Because otherwise, what she would be saying strikes me as just…a bit silly. People are still allowed to engage with a song even if it has a racial message, and even if they’re not the target audience. Music is art, and a song like “Formation,” which is full of specific cultural references, is certainly directed at members of that culture. That doesn’t mean people outside that culture can’t respect it and enjoy it on some level.
She also writes that, if you’re white, your place during songs like this is “in the bleachers,” and “cheering on the sidelines.” I’m not sure exactly what she means by that. Does that mean we can’t have those songs on our playlists? That we can only sit still and listen passively when those songs come on? Something about that doesn’t feel quite right.
The real important thing for white listeners to understand when engaging with songs like “Formation” is that their cultural position and the artist’s cultural position differ greatly, and if you want to sing along, understand the importance and depth of what you’re singing along to, and understand that in no way are you who they're singing to.
White listeners can still enjoy the song to the extent that our cultural position allows us to, music and art are not limited in that way; you can’t tell someone they can’t enjoy a work of art. Yes, white people are not supposed to “get” "Formation" and never can—but we can surely learn from its message, and appreciate its importance and impact in this moment in history.
