I’m currently teaching the Autobiography of Malcolm X in a few formats, including the original text, the Spike Lee Joint, and a graphic biography rendition. It’s great to see his notions of “Black is Beautiful” (à la Steve Biko) and “By any means necessary” reach millions vis-à-vis Beyoncé’s charged Super Bowl performance. The performance, which featured dancers dressed as Black Panthers getting into the “Formation” of an X (an icon of identity, resistance, and the human right for self-identification), was a fervid Black Power anthem and a call to arms. The video for the song, “Formation,” is itself a resonant intervention into the popular imagination concerning the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and it unapologetically celebrates roots and history while disavowing white supremacy’s desire to control Black cultural narratives. It’s remarkable to see the intersection of aesthetics and politics taking place in popular music, as a nascent canon of new Black radical thinkers, activists, writers, and musicians provide the soundtrack for the current zeitgeist. Hopefully, people are listening. I leave you with a few words from X’s influential “The Ballot or the Bullet”:
“Now in speaking like this, it doesn’t mean that we’re anti-white, but it does mean we’re anti-exploitation, we’re anti-degradation, we’re anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn’t want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us. Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man.”
Check out the video for “Formation” below:
P.s. I’ve kept this post brief, largely because there are women of colour far more equipped to discuss why this video is so important. Here’s a list of “Six Beyoncé Pieces By Women of Color That You Should Read Right Now”: http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/2016/02/08/six-beyonce-pieces-by-women-of-color-that-you-should-read-right-now/
PAUL WATKINS 