That's weird, it's getting weird!
Hi everyone!
I just really wanted to come
up here
and talk very briefly about something
that I've been
noticing on the TL (twitter).
So if you've been plugged into the
internet and you're in the know,
and especially if you're a Beyonce fan,
you
have probably heard of or have already
seen
the film by beyonce called "Black is
King."
Now, there's been a great deal
of talking and discussion and fighting
over this film and honestly i gotta hand
it to
our girl Beyonce. Because
only she can be the only celebrity who
can
create this much buzz this much talk
about
even a film trailer. Talk less of the
actual film itself.
See, I, I have some notes because i have a
lot to say.
But today I wanted to talk
about the critiques that have been
lobbed against
beyonce by many people on twitter
and even outside of twitter.
Regardless, if you believe
it isn't fair for people to critique
beyonce based off of a film
trailer. I think there's nothing you
can do about it.
Even though a trailer is a preview it's
still a form of medium and
people are totally free
and valid in critiquing beyonce even
based off of a preview
even based off of a trailer because it
is still media.
So from the film's trailer we basically
see a hodgepodge of african cultures, we see imagery of
wealth, royalty, moses, water. You know, the typical things.
This brought on discussions about
the wakandafication of Africa.
Now, if you were held up on that term
I'm going to quickly explain it a little
bit hopefully it'll make sense
um because i think a lot of people saw
that term got
caught up on that term, blew it off as
"diaspora wars" and didn't really read to
understand what Dr. Jade Bentil, who's the person who coined the
term was trying to say
um because as you know it's twitter and
so people
you know write things off and twitter
really is not really the best place to
formulate ideas but thank you to dr
bento for
you know this work um but i think
i'm going to explain it very quickly so
people kind of understand
what she meant by wakanda vacation
so like i said earlier this term was
coined by dr
j bento but dr j bento isn't limiting
this idea to wakanda
she simply used the term wakanda because
through black panther what she described
um was very obvious it was clear you
know from the start of the project
so what dr j bento means by describing
what quantification
is that it is the reimagination
of postcolonial you know africans and
african
descendants in which we look towards or
we desire a
pre-colonial past that disproves
our slaveness now if you don't really
understand what i mean by slaveness
i'm talking about our physical
enslavement and
also our ontological enslavement if you
don't know what i mean by that
um it's very complicated
but i have some books in the description
and they should be able to help you out
but figuring out what i mean by all of
this but she's talking both about our
physical enslavement and our ontological
enslavement uh and so we create these
reimaginations
of us as kings and queens and while
that did exist for many of the people
who lived in the continent at that time
and live on the continent
today that is not a reality
so like i said earlier now i think a lot
of people didn't quite
read to understand what dr bental was
actually trying to say it isn't really a
conversation
focused on cultural appropriation rather
it is a conversation
centered around the narratives that we
all
create you know those of us in the
diaspora and those of us
within the continent the narratives that
we create about africa beyonce is not
the only one who does this
many of us do this we visualize and
imagine
in africa where there were kings and
queens
capitalist wealth abundance and etc
while this did exist on a continent like
i said earlier like let's be real
this is not the reality for many many
africans on the continent today and it
was also not the reality for many
africans on the continent in the
pre-colonial era
many of us were farmers many of us were
tradesmen
you know many of us were the town crier
many of us were the elders like not all
of us
were kings and queens and this is just a
reality that we
need to face so why are we reaching for
a colonialist
and a capitalist wet dream of africa
that were
exploited if when they did exist in the
past and do not really exist for people
on the continent today of course
the first thing people reach is like why
can't i want to see
africans who are not starving children i
always see africans who are starving
children on tv
i just want to see africans in their you
know glory in their
in wealth and in being kings and queens
and i totally get that i totally do
but what i'm wondering is like where is
where does your desire
to see wealthy africans come from
does it come from a need to prove to
western sensibilities
that africans too have wealth africans
too can have material possessions
africans too
can hoard wealth africans too can use
capital system capitalist systems to
exploit others
where does this desire to
appeal to whiteness and why
sensibilities western sensibilities more
so
um come from where does it come from
why do you want to center the white gaze
so heavily in the narratives of those
who live on the continent
so if you want to learn more about what
i had just
said from the beginning i would suggest
two books for you the first book i would
suggest
is on the post colony by achilles
i'm pretty sure i said his name wrong um
i apologize and a second book is blast
skin
white mask by franz fanon um both books
are great
they'll really get you thinking about
the white gays and why it is so s
why we center it so much and how we need
to decenter it
and you know the very real
connotations the disadvantages of
constantly seeing
africa under this very western gaze
so like i said earlier um this
conversation spurred a lot of people to
just write it off as diaspora wars
and i don't think that's a really fair
thing to do
especially when africans on the
continent themselves are also saying
that these narratives are very limiting
we need to discuss this also i would
just like to note that people were also
talking about the fact that like
what dr bental was describing does not
only occur within the diaspora
not only african americans do this
africans do this
africans who live in europe do this
africans who live in canada do this
all of us within the diaspora do this
because of
our positioning in this world through
slavery and colonization
it has it it is not an issue only aas
talk about and only aas do and it's not
a narrative that only aa's buy into
africans buy into it all the time i
literally saw a post today with somebody
talking about how
we need to see africans wealthy because
it's corrective promotion
but what is that what is that why
are is your sense of wealth so
tied to capitalism and
and exploitation of other people why
and i'm not even going to exempt myself
from this because i used to do
the exact same thing people were talking
about when i was
younger you know i grew up um in nigeria
well
i was born in nigeria i lived there
until i was
young and then i moved to canada and i
grew up pretty middle class in nigeria
and i also grew up pretty middle class
in canada as well
and of course all the nigerians i knew
weren't starving they weren't people who
didn't have
jobs they weren't people they were
essentially we're not poor
right um and this whole conversation
also
ties into how much our society hates
poor people
but that's a different discussion but i
grew up
you know always constantly being like
well you know why can't we see africans
who are rich why do we always have to
see the poor starving africans and like
that is classism you know
and on top of that like that is not the
reality like in
my country there are people who
make less than a dollar a day and they
can't feed their children and they
they can't afford to pay school fees you
know a big
problems with wealth there's literally
abject poverty like
and for me the tide changed when i went
back to nigeria
i've gone back a few times well i went
back when i was 15
and i was a little bit more you know i
was definitely reading more
i was learning more i was you know a
baby feminist at the time too
and i went back and i just saw the huge
disparities
in wealth between you know my neighbor
and people down the street that i
couldn't in all good conscience like
just
navigate through the world thinking why
can't africans be
rich like talking like that because it's
not the reality and
when you see that people are literally
struggling just to feed their kids
you will feel some type of like it'll
make you feel
weird that you're using that narrative
that you're still
you know dealing with this these
narratives so again i want to say
these narratives are wrong in my opinion
and you're free to disagree but you know
this is my opinion
because they are so heavily predicated
upon what the west has to think listen
nobody gets to validate our narratives
other than us we do not need to rely on
what the west has to say
to validate the realities of people who
live on the continent
and i'm going to say this it's because
you know i might be overstepping as
somebody who
is now in a dice forum right like i
don't live on the continent i haven't
lived there in
a good number of years but um
really the people who should be deciding
these narratives are the people on the
continent it shouldn't be us
we shouldn't be deciding who gets to see
who in what light you know
and i understand where this need comes
from because you know
so much of it is wrapped up in racism
and xenophobia
but like we still do not get to decide
what narratives are valid and which
narratives are
not valid and okay so for
those of you who may not agree and think
that oh
you you may just think oh it's only
africans within the diaspora
who have these ideas here's a very great
example
so if you've seen the ted talk by
chimamanda ngozi adichie
she's a nigerian hi y'all i really
messed up on jim amanda's name
and i can't in good conscience let that
happen
especially as a nigerian so i'm going to
pronounce her name again her name is
chim
amanda ngozi
writer who identified you know she calls
herself a feminist
and um i mean that was kind of shady i
wasn't trying to be shady but yeah she
is
she's a nigerian feminist who's a writer
um
and she talks in this ted talk called
the danger of a single story she
basically talks about
what how dangerous it is to see
africans under the stereotype right and
she
then you know presents her own story
which is that you know she didn't grow
up
seeing poor people like i said she grew
up reading
you know western books she grew up you
know with educated parents she grew up
with
xy and said kind of like you know my
middle class experience as well
you know she is middle class as well or
probably even more than that
she also is kind of privileging this
this story
her story but the reality is is that
many nigerians do not get the
opportunity to leave the country
and go to school in the west many
nigerians do not get the opportunity
to even have enough money to feed their
kids like i said earlier
and so privileging that story that
single story and saying that's a
corrective promotion
like she kind of did in the in the video
and i actually wrote a whole essay about
this
um a few years ago when this first video
came out because that was what really
troubled me and
i understood the good that she was
trying to say and i
really understood the message but that
was my gripe with that whole message was
just like
this is a very middle kind of a
middle-class
way middle-class african afropolitan
way of navigating the western gaze
because
the white gaze western gaze is still
central even when you bring up a
different story right
a different story of wealth in
comparison to the single story of
people who are poor and who've never
heard mariah carey
sing and things like that like you know
that you're still navigating under that
we see that the west still has
these ideas about africans why
it's because of this antagonistic
relationship between the west
and people who are african or
descendants of africans
um and this in this issue
has more to do with slavery colonization
and also our ontological positioning
as non-humans or better yet anti-humans
in comparison
to people who are afforded the category
of human so anyone who's basically
not black you know but yeah basically
what i'm saying is it has more to do
with
the narratives that we're running away
from by you know
focusing on the narrative kings and
queens so the narratives we're running
away from which is slavery and
colonization
it has more to do with that than oh
corrective promotion
because in my opinion that doesn't work
it has never worked
because there have been tons of africans
and descendants of africans who have
been innovative you know written created
so many amazing things
have wealth and yet there are still
these narratives about us
you know so of course when we turn these
discussions on twitter into oh
there they go diaspora wars had it again
we kind of missed the meat of these
discussions
um and what i was really grateful that
was brought up in these discussions is
that there are definitely more
similarities
between those who live in continental
africa and those who live within their
diaspora than we like to think
and a lot of what is happening over here
has an interconnection and it's been
influenced you know by what's
happening over there like so for
instance people were talking about the
disruption of
kinship ties and if you don't know what
kinship ties are it's you know familial
ties and
often a lot of scholarship is focused on
the disruption of kinship ties through
through slavery and how it impacted
those who were enslaved
that were moved you know forcibly moved
to the new world
and we clearly see that because you know
during slavery families were broken up
those that's a disruption of kinship
ties but what
people don't often seem to think about
is the kinship ties that were disrupted
during
slavery as it was happening on the
continent like
many people were you know runaway slaves
oh
sorry guys there's a bug in my room many
people were
runaway slaves who you know had to run
who joined different tribes joined
different groups you know even the act
of slavery within the continent
kidnapping people
that was the disruption of kinship ties
on the continent and it continued on
during colonization as well you know
kinship ties
have like being disrupted on the
continent
sounds very similar to the kinship ties
that were being disrupted
in this in the states during slavery
obviously
things are a bit different you know the
the
context are a little bit different but
frankly like
we see these disruptions similarly
happening
another thing people talk about is nato
alienation now nato alienation is kind
of complicated it's a big thing
people are still theorizing talking
about it it's very interesting
but something that people talk about all
the time
is the sense of displacement it doesn't
go away
you know it's a sense of displacement
and you know a sense of disruption that
happens for those on the continent and
for those
you know outside the continent for
example
like my family my family's last name
is scottish
personally i'm pretty sure i have
no scottish family members
i'm pretty sure about that who knows
i've never taken an ancestry test
because i
believe they are shams they're scams and
it's also a way for the government to
have
more of your dna than they necessarily
need
that's my gripe with that but i've never
done an ancestry test but i
think it's fairly reasonable to think i
have no scottish
ancestry so why is my last name scottish
simple the area that my family is from
in
nigeria there was a lot of force
conversions like a lot of people had to
you know change their religion from the
traditional ancestral practices that
they used to do
to christianity and catholicism um
and so i'm so sure that my
great-great-great-great-grandfather on
my father's side
was forced to change our name and so now
we
have a name that isn't really ours like
that we don't know what our real last
name was it's
been changed and we don't have the
records
to show what our real name was so now i
have this scottish last name
very similar to lots of people
in the americas who you know were
descendants of enslaved people
who have scottish british irish
last names and like you know it's
usually
through enslavement the process of
slavery
and being forced to take on the name of
your slave master
but you see that that is a disruption
and that's a similar disruption but we
often like to think of these
systems like the afterlife of slavery
colonization
and you know our ontological slaveness
is being separate
from one another but it really is not
they're very similar and they're very
interconnected now that's not to say
there aren't any differences
i agree there are differences um but i
think there are
similarities as well i bring that
up because i don't want any diaspora
wars in my comments i don't want anybody
blaming anybody for anything
the reason why people brought this up is
because of beyonce's work
and it brought very important
knowledge and ideas and i just want
people to engage
and challenge what your preconceived
notions are and
actually read to understand because jade
wasn't really
talking about cultural appropriation she
was
you know theorizing something much
bigger than that but
some of us didn't read to understand you
know and saw the word were
quantification and freaked out
oh and also wanted to add two great
books that describe
everything i talked about about the
afterlife of slavery colonization
ontological slaveness first book is
scenes of subjection by siddia hartman
and the second book
is slavery and social death by orlando
patterson
now let's move on to the elephant in the
room
the reason why you click this video
because you know i mentioned
a certain person you know and the
elephant
is the beehive and the queen be herself
beyonce
listen i was very scared to make this
video because
if i'm being real the beehive is an
unhinged stand group i mean
even beyonce's publicist told them to
calm down because they were moving mad
they were actually out here moving mad
and they are moving mad right now
people should not have to feel like they
need to
protect their their twitter accounts so
that they don't get
death threats from the beehive people
don't feel like people should not feel
like they have to talk about beyonce
in code so that the beehive doesn't come
under their comments and
you know send them death threats over a
celebrity
that they don't know in real life
somebody you don't know
in real life you're really going this
hard for
wow y'all it's getting it's getting
strange
it's getting very strange listen if you
can't
handle the critiques that are being made
about beyonce
in good faith the critiques about her
use of black radical aesthetics
in her music and her calls for black
liberation
while doing all this to gain more
money while commodifying all this for
her own gain
there is an issue here then
i should not have to let people know
that i too
am also a beyonce fan and i have been
since i watched crazy in love on mtv
base as a kid when i was not supposed to
be watching mtv base
i should not have to say that so that
beyonce fans don't start
commenting saying oh well you're a hater
no i'm not but i can separate my love
for her music
from obsession and fanatical behavior
that's weird
it's getting weird well
so what is the issue with beyonce's work
that has been
stressing the girls out because the
girls are
stressed out it's
simple but it's also kind of complicated
beyonce either uses black radical
aesthetics
when her message is everything but
within
the black radical tradition for example
her super bowl show in which she and her
dancers were shown
in black panther outfits black panther
imagery
listen you cannot use the aesthetics of
the black panthers
who were communists and you are a
blazing capitalist it doesn't it doesn't
it's not clicking it's not connecting
and this is these are
these are the things that stress people
out you know
or she does this thing where she is part
of the homogenization and flattening of
the continent in her ruminations and
imagery of
wealth and royalty and almost every
recent
record now i'm not blaming her
for this fully because this issue
also lays at the hands of lion king and
it's reimagination of
africa which is very problematic um
and i'm aware that this project was for
the lion king
but people still have a right to
critique her for all of this beyonce
is not a mindless person you know she
creates her projects is very hands-on
and so people
have a right to critique what she's
doing
another defense people like to make
about beyonce
and her work is that she isn't the only
artist who is wealthy
and gives no qualms about reminding all
of us brookies 24
7. and i agree i totally agree i mean
the one person i think who could be
beyonce's counterpart in this is rihanna
but there is a clear difference beyonce
is like nobody absolutely nobody
is as invested in black radical
aesthetics
aesthetics about blackness as beyonce is
and nobody is able to do these huge
projects
like beyonce and so when
you mess with that and your aesthetics
are there but the message is you know
it's empties feeling a little hollow a
little shallow
people are going to pick up on it and
people are going to talk about it
i mean the aesthetics are beautiful not
taking that away from her they're
beautiful the
movie is beautiful the music is amazing
and that's what we love
and nobody does it like beyonce y'all
and that's the truth nobody doesn't like
her
but it feels very hollow when you are so
aware of her wealth and her politics and
her profession
to capitalism and we know beyonce does
listen to these critiques
and so it's not like she's unaware of
them she knows what people are saying
but it kind of feels a little bit
opportunistic
at times and pointing
to the african artists who were involved
in the project
does not change my point now
i want to give beyonce grace
because i know there are people who are
not making critiques
in good faith and so i hope this doesn't
come off as me
trying to you know attack her fully
but i do think she is at the helm of
this project
and when you are at the face you are the
helm you are the project you are
the package people are always gonna have
to have something to say
and when you are you know getting
yourself
entangled entanglement entangled with
these narratives people will have things
to say
so to end this video off i will say this
again
if you can't handle critiques made in
general made in good
faith about beyonce and her use of black
radical aesthetics
in her music and her calls for black
liberation
while also commodifying it for her own
gain in her music
there is an issue here
so you know who is another public figure
that kind of reminds me
of this beyonce debacle and the
discussions that always come
on when beyonce is talking about black
his king black is this black is that
is obama the discussions
especially when black people are
discussing beyonce
and obama's very similar um so one day
i'll make a video
not today so thank you for watching
and as always please share this video
comment
um like the video and also let me know
what you think of all
of this issues these the back goals that
people are having about beyonce
um did you hear what miss titus said
about black feminists calling them
terrorists
because they're challenging beyonce tell
me what you think about stan culture
because i think it's a little bit
fanatical and a little bit ridiculous
and um some of y'all need some help so
let me know what you think down below
okay bye
