On my way to a Lake Merritt music festival, around 3 pm yesterday, I parallel parked below Lance's window on MLK, beeped up to him, "I'm here," and queued Beyonce's "Sorry" to share with my best friend in my car.
"You got to hear this."
Lance gasped every time Bey cursed.
He surprised me with his surprise. "You ain't know?" I asked him. I think "Sorry" may be my favorite on her "Lemonade" album.
The song bounces in phrases that work despite that annoying but popular clipped delivery that's usually coupled with an autotune treatment and in the worst renditions, is impossible to understand. In this case, sans auto-tune, the repeated phrase, "n-word, nawwhh" is decipherable. And that would normally be a turn off for me: I hate the way careless black folks give white folks permission to use that word: my daughter said she watched a white girl's lips as Bey sang "Sorry" at the concert, just to see if she would repeat it. Ish is complicated.
But here I am, near about middle-aged, a bit learned, a bit worldly, a bit radical, a bit contented, peaceful, and damn it if I ain't feeling that song (Let's set aside the "suck on my balls, balls." Not feeling that.)
Why? What is it that draws me in? What is it that keeps me tuned? Why am I respecking Bey like never before? First, the music--yes. The production is thick, tight, knocking, progressive, and comprehensive in its scope. The lyrics ring true. When she sings, "I left a note in the hallway/by the time your read it I'll be far away" I am with her.
Second, and more than anything, it's the emotion. This is Bey's first album for which I can connect with the emotional authenticity. I am a feeling being first. I am a thinking being second. I want my art to move me emotionally. And because I don't care nothing about who put a ring on whose finger or bootiliciousness, Bey missed me for most of her career. (And she's done quite well without me).
But now, I'm in formation. She's got my ear. I'm listening.
So, to say that bell hooks bothered my "Lemonade" joy with her "Moving Beyond Pain" response, would be too soft. Why?
An old sociology teacher turned me on to bell hooks in undergrad. I dug her then and appreciate her now, but am rarely moved by her pronouncements because they elevate the intellectual too far above the emotional.
When I read her, I hear her tendency toward labeling: capitalist, feminist, patriarchal, hetero-normative, violent, sexist, white, other. The labels give us a name for the thing; they are not the thing. The reliance on labeling also distances me from the feeling, the humanness of the story. It's the same response in me that's triggered when I hear millennials speak politically in overwrought academics that ring insincere. So overwrought are the academics, the humanity is lost. And we tune out the droning automatons who've ceased speaking to our commonality because the political has taken the personal hostage. And isn't that what we're here for in the first place? The personal connection. Lighting the places in the human heart that increase empathy.
And women know. How many women, black women, have sat with soaked shirt collars murmuring to themselves, "Me and my baby we gone be alright/we gone live a good life." (Bey)
Compare this to,
"No matter how hard women in relationships with patriarchal men work for change, forgive, and reconcile, men must do the work of inner and outer transformation if emotional violence against black females is to end. We see no hint of this in 'Lemonade'. If change is not mutual then black female emotional hurt can be voiced, but the reality of men inflicting emotional pain will still continue." (hooks)
So the analysis falls short here because although she may be absolutely right, "Lemonade" is a story thick with color, emotion, and realism. It's the story that should be elevated above the intellectual because intellectualizing affects thinking, primarily. Feeling affects behavior.
This idea hit me last night as I dipped into my entertainment budget to rent "Weiner". I watched it twice, Lord. Why? I'm going to paraphrase Weiner's final proclamation to the makers of the film, whatever your intent in creating this documentary, it will be overshadowed by that thing that people want more of. Weiner's right. I wanted more. Nothing I had ever read, seen or heard, prepared me for the moment I connected Huma Abedin's story with Beyonce's "Lemonade" story. The moment Abedin turns to a tv screen to catch Weiner's blurred sexting photo posted on CNN is riveting and heartbreaking at once. Any woman who's ever been humiliated by a man's behavior will freeze here. She turns to him and claps the air. All that's not said in this moment is its power. Dead silence.
Abedin, the cool political professional looks like a grenade with a pulled pin. Weiner asks that the cameras shut down.
So many women betrayed, and what is worse than the abuse of a woman's heart, of her family, of her future? A smiling Abedin emerges to deliver a press conference statement in support of this man she clearly loves, but who is so damaged, he can't give her what she deserves. Abedin was pregnant when Weiner got caught sexting the first time. ...
Big Homie better grow up.
She haunts the screen: kind, gorgeous, brilliant, accomplished before him, pushing a stroller through NYC. Bey and Huma.
So here's where hooks fails. She insists, that "images of female violence undercut a central message embedded in 'Lemonade', that violence in all its forms, especially the violence of lies and betrayal, hurts." bell hooks' analysis calls attention to problem/solution dynamics. But it's dry and easy to forget. And frankly sounds like that person who tells you why you feel the way you feel and what's wrong with your feelings. The response is heady and disconnected when all you wanted was for them to listen and give you a hug.
And Beyonce' in that mustard dress toting that bat favored Abedin's thunderclap to me. And both "Lemonade" and "Weiner" worked to strike a chord reflective of the shocking depths of emotional pain experienced by women everywhere at that moment when their worlds crash. There's no thinking out of it. It's visceral. It's hot. It's devastating. It's life changing. Both artistic renditions of women's hurt are meaningful and evocative enough that they might cause any man viewing it to pause to consider the damage his choices might inflict upon his woman, his family, and his community. As well, it may increase the empathy of the observers who objectify and distance other humans enough to continue to label: them and not us.
We've had enough of rationalizing and too little empathizing.
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