Beyoncé’s announcement of her Formation Tour after her performance at the Super Bowl caused international media uproar and excitement from both fans and critics alike. For lack of a better phrase, the Internet may have indeed "broken" upon ticket pre-sale that began February 9. People everywhere were clamoring to get their tickets, competing for who could press the "purchase" button first, and already wondering what songs she would be performing.

But all this was relatively normal. She is an icon, after all.

What was less anticipated, and in my opinion, significantly more disturbing, was the amount of "Beyoncéhate" that surfaced in the time succeeding both her halftime show performance and the release of "Lemonade."

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I am her Number One fan, that I was first in line to buy tickets to her Pittsburgh concert, or that I even purchased tickets at all. But being a Pittsburgh resident and watching the news lately has had me rather concerned.

On May 20, WTAE published a story bearing the headline "Pittsburgh police officers planning to boycott Beyoncé concert at Heinz Field," with the opening remarks of the article stating, "City police officers who believe Beyoncé is anti-police are planning to boycott the singer's May 31 concert at Heinz Field, and the union said it will file a labor complaint if the city forces them to work the secondary employment.”

But for what?

Her halftime show featured Black-Panther-like outfits, with her backup dancers all wearing black leather outfits, black berets and styling their hair into afros. They formed an "X" across the field, in homage to Malcolm X and in obvious support of the "#BlackLivesMatter" movement that has spread country-wide due to events that have occurred over the last several years involving young black people being killed by law enforcement. Bringing light to the issue on a stage watched by the 115 million people who view the Super Bowl each year did not go over well for those who don't agree with her message.

The one thing that people in this camp of thought have seemed to overlook is that... Beyoncé isn't anti-cop. She has mentioned admiration for officers in MANY subsequent interviews, noting that the artistic liberties she had taken were being misconstrued.

And so we are brought back around to the Pittsburgh Police's (and truthfully, police EVERYWHERE's) boycott of her upcoming concerts.

Police and their families may have been offended by her apparent support of the Black Panthers, may have felt threatened and endangered by the message she was portraying, may have felt her performance was inappropriate.

But refusing to work the event is not the answer.

First of all, Beyoncé’s message in “Formation” has not at all called for the death of cops, never denounced law enforcement as a whole, and the song’s purpose was not to incite anti-cop sentiments. Her performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show was powerful, but meant to show support for a movement that truthfully should not have even been necessary in the first place.

This image is just one of the many that have surfaced since her performance, spinning off of the well-known #BlackLivesMatter.

This is incredibly troubling for several reasons, the first being that suggesting that the boycott of a R&B/Pop singer is a statement in support of an entirely unrelated entity (law enforcement). It’s pretty ridiculous. This isn’t a debate on whether Beyoncé is better than Rihanna. This isn’t trivial.

Secondly, the initial hashtag that surfaced in 2013 was NOT created to suggest that Black lives matter MORE than white lives, Hispanic lives, Asian lives. It was certainly not meant to suggest that the lives of the members of the police force do not matter.

Of course, there is always legitimate concern for violence, riots and other law-enforcement issues at ANY concert or ANY event where a large number of people are in a relatively small area. Hyping up this particular concert is only exacerbating the problem. Even if the intent of the police boycott of her tour is solely to express distaste for her artistic choices in her ONE song/video/performance of Formation, that is NOT how it comes across. It looks like a law-enforcement sponsored boycott of Beyoncé the person, Beyoncé the artist, and the things that she stands for (which include denouncing racism, promoting feminism, showing support for the mothers and family members who have lost their loved ones in incidents like Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown, etc). It should go without saying that this stance, if anything, will only fuel the fire of those who ARE “anti-cop,” those who have become disenchanted with law enforcement for whatever reason.

And truly, the hardest pill of all to swallow is the fact that an issue as complex as this one, an issue that has plagued our nation for quite literally its entire existence, has been boiled down to a hashtag. This discussion is incredibly complex and there are an infinite number of perspectives that can be taken, but the emotional heaviness and severity of the issue is being compromised by this boycott.