Video Of The Week: Beyoncé

So Beyoncé was given what amounts to a cameo appearance in a Super Bowl half-time show though she's a thousand times the artist and performer Coldplay and Bruno Mars are, and, well... America lost its fucking mind.

Her performance of Formation scared the living shit out of white people who somehow still don't understand the anger coming from the racial violence that comes with cops killing unarmed citizens of one skin tone and not even getting prosecuted for it.

Good.

Common sense and history have seemingly both failed at educating the American masses, and they need the culture shock to arrive in 2016 and either wake up and behave like their Constitution wants them to (We The People, All men are created equal, etc.) or blow the whole fucking thing up and start from scratch.

Black folks are no longer slaves in the U.S., but having started out poor and at the bottom of the pile, the fact that the system's rigged to prevent the poor from reaching a better life disproportionately affects those who got their"equality" later in the game; and these days, brown people have it worst yet, with threats of deporting Latinos and the illegal way Middle Easterners are targeted as poential terror threats - and that's saying nothing of the legal enslaving of whoever makes the technology we use, the clothes we wear, the coffee we drink, and the jewels we give each other, but since that happens overseas, many are turning a blind eye to it.

All while corporations poison our water, our food, bankrupt us to death, kill off our education system and profit from jails.

But Beyoncé's the problem, right? Wrong. She's the messenger of a quarter of the population who is standing up for itself; we had that here in Québec three years ago, but like sheep we went back to our pasture quietly after we almost changed our corrupt leaders' ways and instead got stuck with corruption at all levels of government. I hope the Black community in the U.S. doesn't fall for that shit as well. As Public Enemy said: United we stand, divided we fall, and love conquers all. The African-American community should try to bring all levels of the population back up in the same footing - as equals - and not just accept one piece of candy to shut up and go back to their lives. If the largest democracy can finally get its act together, perhaps it'll inspire others abroad.

After all, B's Super Bowl performance had allusions to the Black Panthers, a political movement that came about in the 1960s as a voice for the voiceless and primarily African-Americans, sure, but whose main message was always to be treated as humans, as equals, to not be subjected to useless, mindless police brutality (ring a bell?) and, though they weren't afraid to use force in defense of their ideals, ultimately, they had leftist ideals of equality and educating young people of all races and creeds.

Here is the video she dropped some 24 hours beforehand, which is "just as Black" but without the BP garb:



It was directed by Melina Matsoukas, a Beyoncé (Green Light, Kitty Kat, Sugar Mama, Upgrade U, Diva, Sweet Dreams, Put It In A Love Song, Why Don't You Love Me, Move Your Body, Pretty Hurts, RUN and a Target ad) and Rihanna (Rude Boy, Rockstar 101, S&M, We Found Love, and You Da One) regular.