{"id":45897,"date":"2016-03-04T01:48:52","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T01:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45897"},"modified":"2021-12-23T20:36:51","modified_gmt":"2021-12-23T20:36:51","slug":"beyonce-creoles-and-modern-blackness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45897","title":{"rendered":"Beyonc\u00e9, Creoles, and Modern Blackness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyonc\u00e9, Creoles, and Modern Blackness<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

University of California Press Blog<\/a>
\n2016-02-29<\/p>\n

Tyina Steptoe<\/a><\/strong>, Assistant Professor of History
\nUniversity of Arizona<\/em><\/p>\n

Tyina Steptoe is the author of <\/em>Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City<\/a> (2015).<\/em><\/p>\n

Beyonc\u00e9<\/a> is a black woman. This isn\u2019t exactly earth-shattering news; after all, the 34-year-old, Houston<\/a>-born entertainer has one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Yet, since the release of the video for her song \u201cFormation<\/a>\u201d on February 6, an avalanche of tweets and think pieces have heralded the arrival of an unapologetically black Beyonc\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Set in New Orleans<\/a>, the \u201cFormation\u201d video features a platinum braid wearing, hot sauce-loving black woman who adores afros and her \u201cNegro nose.\u201d Helmed by award-winning director Melina Masoukas<\/a>, the clip also prominently features images associated with the Black Live Matter<\/a> movement. In one scene, a group of militarized police officers stand in front of a dancing, unarmed black boy. Another shot shows a wall tagged with the words \u201cStop shooting us.\u201d These are not words or images typically associated with Queen Bey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One day later, Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Super Bowl halftime performance<\/a> featured a bevy of black female back-up dancers dressed like Black Panthers<\/a> in berets and afros. Some of the women later posed with a sign that read \u201cJustice 4 Mario Woods.\u201d Woods was a young African American man slain by police officers in San Francisco<\/a> on December 2, so the display indelibly links Beyonc\u00e9 to recent protests against police killings. Some white fans reacted angrily. By Monday morning, the hashtag #BoycottBeyonce circulated on social media, and one group of detractors planned a boycott (though that didn\u2019t quite pan out in the way they\u2019d hoped.) \u201cSaturday Night Live<\/a>\u201d spoofed negative white reaction with a video called \u201cThe Day Beyonc\u00e9 Turned Black<\/a>.\u201d To her fans and critics, it was clear that Beyonc\u00e9 has made her racial identity and modern racial politics central to her public image in 2016…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyonc\u00e9, Creoles, and Modern Blackness University of California Press Blog 2016-02-29 Tyina Steptoe, Assistant Professor of History University of Arizona Tyina Steptoe is the author of Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City (2015). Beyonc\u00e9 is a black woman. This isn\u2019t exactly earth-shattering news; after all, the 34-year-old, Houston-born entertainer has one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8413,459,1196,8,20,25],"tags":[21939,22943,20466,23134],"class_list":["post-45897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-communications","category-history","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-beyonce","tag-beyonce-giselle-knowles-carter","tag-tyina-steptoe","tag-university-of-california-press-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45897"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62646,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45897\/revisions\/62646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}