After Beyoncé’s Super Bowl 50 half time performance with Coldplay and Bruno Mars, many people were astonished. Beyoncé walked onto the field with her dancers behind her, who were dressed as members of the Black Panther Party. This infuriated many people, and many people felt that it was wrong for Beyoncé to bring symbols of past racial conflict into her performance. Most people like to call this performance racist because of the Black Panthers costumes because, according to them, the Black Panthers were a “violent anti-whites group,” but what they don’t understand is that the goal of the Black Panther Party wasn't to create black on white violence.
Get ready for a history lesson.
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was formed in October 1966 in Oakland, CA, during the Civil Rights Movement. They became famous for taking up guns to use in defense of police brutality, as opposed to Dr. Martin Luther King’s more peaceful methods of protest and defense. The Black Panthers participated in and organized many community programs, including free breakfast, health clinics, and shoes for children.
Contrary to popular belief, the Black Panther Party did not fundamentally believe that all white people are racist. Bobby Seale, one of the founders, once stated in "Seize the Time," “…cultural nationalism sees the white man as the oppressor and makes no distinction between racist whites and non-racist whites, as the Panthers do.”
Not only did the Black Panther Party recognize that there was a need for defense in the black community against the violence they were facing from the police and racists in general, but they also saw that there were problems in the black community economically, and they made an effort to try and improve those things. They understood that society allows the smaller, more wealthy class to hold all political and economic power in which they used to take advantage of the majority. Bobby Seale said, “We do not fight racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We do not fight exploitative capitalism with black capitalism. We fight capitalism with basic socialism. And we do not fight imperialism with more imperialism. We fight imperialism with proletarian internationalism.” Although socialism may not have been the best solution to fixing the economic issues that the black community faced at the time, it was apparent that their effort was not to make the black community superior to all others, or to eradicate the aristocracy of the white community, but instead to make them equal to everyone else (Source).
With all of that being said, it’s actually pretty ridiculous to call out Beyoncé for being “racist” for having her backup dancers dress as these historical figures. But you know, everyone’s probably right, because how dare Beyoncé remind us all of past issues of racial conflict with symbols from these times, right?
In all honesty, why can’t we allow the black community to celebrate their heritage and their past? They have faced enough controversy and conflict from the majority, and this sense of black pride may be needed for this community, especially looking at all they have been through in the past few years. And if you truly feel like a certain symbol is racist, please do your research first, because you may be misguided.
