By Aliya Khan

On March 4, writer and third-wave feminist activist Rebecca Walker spoke to a room full of feminist psychologists at the Association of Women in Psychology 2016 conference. Her speech centered on Beyoncé’s newly released “Formation” video—its controversy and what Walker repeatedly referred to as its “Fresh Out of Fucks” approach to racism, classism, and sexism in America.

Walker alluded to her knee-jerk critique of Beyoncé’s video—its capitalistic and individualistic undertones. One might expect Adolph Reed to issue a similar dissent—that “Formation” represents an assimilation into American elite that serves the interests of upper middle-class Americans. An initial look at Beyoncé’s video would seem to reinforce Reed’s notions of a “banalized object,” an entertaining figure that distracts from the critical needs of poor and working class black people. This “black particularity” that Reed describes is what maintains systems of inequity despite the assimilation of Black icons in political office…and pop culture.

With song lyrics like “Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper” and “I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making,” it is easy to see how “Formation” is read as a reiteration of neoliberalism and American capitalism. With repeated references to brand names like “Givenchy,” Beyoncé seems to be embracing the notion that the focus of the Black community should be individual class mobility rather than a transformation of the pre-existing oppressive systems.

If we are to move away from viewing the Black community as a monolithic entity, we must approach “Formation” as a more complex, even contradictory, piece of art. It is possible that “Formation” both reflects American neoliberalism while simultaneously subverting it.

After Walker’s talk, I revisited “Formation.” After eight weeks in the PS 507: Black Lives Matter seminar course at the University of Oregon, I was ready to push back on the activism reflected in her video and song. On the tenth listen, however, I began to see nuances that I previously missed (probably due to the fact that, as a white middle-class academic, they were not initially obvious to me).

During her talk, Walker challenged us to examine the power dynamics present in the video and alluded repeatedly to the line, “When he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster.” Walker playfully highlighted the race, gender, and class issues embodied in this line. First, it alludes to female pleasure and subverts gender roles around sex and sexuality. Throughout the song, however, Beyoncé toes the line of tension between her upward class mobility and her working class roots. Early in the song, she sings, “Earned all this money but they never take the country out me/I got hot sauce in my bag.” On initial listen, she seems to be endorsing neoliberal upper-class mobility; however, coded in both her song lyrics and video is a call to the Black community specifically to remember and retain the history of racialized classism in the United States.

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has repeatedly called for reparations for the Black community. Walker, who stated that people should be paid for “saving the world,” examined the “Formation” lyric, “best revenge is your paper” as a twist on this concept. Instead of waiting for the State to grant you money, Beyoncé is telling the Black community to “go off,” “go hard,” and “take what’s [theirs].” As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” In fact, at one point in the video, a newspaper with a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. appears with the tagline “More Than a Dreamer.” “The Dreamers” is a term used by Ta-Nehisi Coates to describe Americans who cling to the American Dream without awareness of the racist and violent history underlying that “dream.” Beyoncé is directly challenging the White American Dream and demanding economic redistribution to the Black community.

One major critique of the song and video has been its focus on Beyoncé’s individual mobility and focus on individual gain—the “do you” mentality that is seen in many facets of contemporary, neoliberal culture. There is something visually striking in that as Beyoncé repeatedly sings “I slay,” she is surrounded by Black and queer women. She follows it up with, “We gon’ slay” and “Ladies, now let’s get in formation.” Sure, Beyoncé highlights her specific standpoint and individual sense of power; but the song and video are clearly not a call for individual success—they are a call for collective action. She states, “Prove to me you got some coordination.” Not only does she directly call for collective action, but also she rallies for marginalized folks within her movement. She makes a direct nod to Black men in her video and song. As Kimberlé Crenshaw writes in “Why Intersectionality Can’t Wait,” Black women have often been called to choose between their Black identity and identity as women. The feminist movement failed to address the desire of Black women to include all individuals in their community, including black men, in their fight for gender and racial equality. Beyoncé’s inclusion of Black men in her video and song highlight this intersectionality, reinforcing that her feminism is deeply related the liberation of all marginalized black folks.

Rebecca Walker said that the quality that distinguishes Beyoncé from other activists is that she “does not give a fuck” what white feminists—or anybody for that matter—think of her work. As Walker highlighted, Beyoncé has a finite amount of time to make a statement, and she is not asking for permission. She is, as Walker said, “fresh out of fucks.”

I don’t believe that Walker saying the word “fuck” repeatedly to a group of professional researchers, activists, educators, and clinicians was a coincidence. Neither is my choice to repeat in this academic blog. As Caitlin Breedlove writes in her piece about LGBTQ issues and Black Lives Matter, “We need new models of leadership, that push back on the idea that only some ‘respectable’ few can speak for us as black people, people of color, or queer people—because as queer women of color we will never really be seen as respectable.”

Throughout Walker’s talk and in the questions that followed after, the concept of “this might not be for you” came up repeatedly. Oftentimes, we expect political engagement to come packaged in a “respectable” (code: white, middle-class) discourse. Beyoncé challenged that notion. Walker challenged that notion. I challenge that notion. When Beyoncé sings, “I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros/I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils,” she is unapologetically celebrating Blackness. Crenshaw mirrors that when she talks about the need to be “unapologetically, pro-black.” Coates also celebrated the beauty of the Black community in “Between the World and Me.”

We assume that Beyoncé’s brand of gender and racial activism is going to look like the white, middle-class movements that have gained popularity and coverage in contemporary culture. We assume that when she states, “You just might be a black Bill Gates in the making/ I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making,” that she is reinforcing capitalism and neoliberalism. But if we believe, as B.J. Fields recounts, that the history of capitalism was built on the subjugation of the Black community, then it goes to say that the concept of a white, male with economic power is fundamentally different than that of a Black woman with economic power. I recognize that this can dangerously fall into the black particularity that Reed cautions against. However, our notions of capitalism and neoliberalism are deeply entrenched in our notions of a racialized class system. Even the concept of a “Black Bill Gates” subverts the foundation of that system and has the potential to transform it. As Robin Kelley writes in “Beyond Black Lives Matter,” “the very foundations of Western civilization were built on such fabrications and enacted through violence. Once they crumble, so goes Western civilization’s conceit as well as the massive philosophical smokescreen that enables (racial) capitalism…” It is these “foundations” that Beyoncé is challenging.

James Baldwin wrote in “Letter to My Nephew,” “We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other, none of us would have survived, and now you must survive because we love you and for the sake of your children and your children’s children.” Coates writes, “…black power births a kind of understanding that illuminates all the galaxies in their truest colors.” In the video, we see a small Black child dancing in front of a police squad. This scene embodies a celebration of Blackness, a refusal of the fear that Coates writes about, while the Black community in the United States continues to fight against the oppressive and violent structures that end the lives of their children.

Beyoncé knew exactly what she was doing when she released “Formation.” She says it perfectly when she sings, “You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation.” Even before the song was released, she knew it was going to stir controversy—from both liberal activists and conservatives. Walker warned in her speech that our movements run the risk of attrition if we don’t find new ways to “keep it exciting.” We discussed this same issue in class when we discussed organizing tactics that were fun, community-building, and unexpected. When Beyoncé sings, “Slay trick, or you get eliminated,” she points to this need to be unexpected and “cocky fresh.” As Crenshaw writes, “Being front and center in conversations about racism or sexism is a complicated privilege that is often hard to see.” Beyoncé is taking power and centralizing the discussions of gender, class, and race in the Black community. And though her discourse may be problematic, it is also a powerful call for Black history, reclamation, and organizing. It was done on her terms and she is not apologizing.