{"id":33675,"date":"2011-02-24T10:52:36","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T15:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=33675"},"modified":"2015-09-20T23:30:54","modified_gmt":"2015-09-21T04:30:54","slug":"is-beyonce-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/02\/24\/is-beyonce-black\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Beyonce “Black”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of the men and women who were brought from Africa by slave traders to the U.S. lost track of what part of Africa they came from. \u00a0Africa, don’t forget, is a giant continent, comprising about 25% of the entire global dry land and including six different climate zones. \u00a0Pre-colonial Africa consisted of over 10,000 meaningful social tribes and polities. \u00a0So while we talk about “Africa” as if it’s a meaningful word, we’re describing a land mass at best\u00a0and, at worst, erasing the complexity of 15% of the world’s people. \u00a0For more, see our post featuring Chimamanda Adichie on the “single story of Africa.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, American Blacks — slaves and descendants of slaves — had the children of everyone from their white friends and lovers (beginning with indentured servants in early America) to the very men and women who enslaved them. \u00a0Many American blacks, then, are often perceived as essentially white when they visit Africa because their skin color is much less black those of “African” groups who never left Africa.<\/p>\n

Enter Beyonc\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Carly M. sent along a story about a fashion shoot for a French fashion magazine,\u00a0L’Officiel Paris<\/a>, <\/em>in which she has her face blackened and wears a dress inspired by her “African roots.”<\/p>\n

Beyonc\u00e9\u00a0is born to an African-American father and a Creole mother; though this is not something I can confirm, her specific connection to Africa was likely cut by slave traders. \u00a0So, to refer to her African roots is to fetishize this thing-called-Africa that Americans recognize, but is a fiction in our imaginations. \u00a0And indeed, while some sort of African roots are no fiction for Beyonc\u00e9, her\u00a0light skin and mixed history (Creole<\/a> refers to someone of mixed African, Native American, and French ancestry) is far more American than African.<\/p>\n

Which makes the blackening of her skin all the more interesting. \u00a0In the U.S., blackface<\/a> has an ugly racist history featuring white men mocking black people, but it’s recently enjoyed a supposedly “edgy” resurgence<\/a> in the fashion industry. \u00a0Yet, Beyonc\u00e9\u00a0is famous in part because U.S. audiences are more tolerant of light-skinned Blacks than dark-skinned Blacks. \u00a0So what does it mean that she is appearing in blackface?<\/p>\n

Dodai Stewart, at Jezebel<\/a>, notes:<\/p>\n

…Beyonc\u00e9’s skin looked a lot\u00a0lighter<\/a> in L’Or\u00e9al ads, and women like\u00a0Aishwarya Rai Bachchan<\/a> and\u00a0Gabourey Sidibe<\/a> had their faces lightened for magazine covers, and black models are so rarely seen on designers’ runways, the message we’re getting from the fashionistas is that it’s bad to actually\u00a0have<\/em> dark skin, but totally cool to\u00a0pretend<\/em> you have it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So we have a situation in which slave traders ripped African people from their homes, landed them in the U.S., and erased their personal origins. \u00a0Then these individuals were mixed (voluntarily and not) with non-Africans, struggling to build a culture unique to American Blacks (one that the rest of us have happily appropriated again and again). \u00a0And then, in the year 2011, they appear in “African” garb and painted faces, because they’re just black enough\/not black enough?* \u00a0I don’t even know.<\/p>\n

Coverage of the photoshoot:<\/p>\n