Analysis Of The Black Lives Matter Movement

In nearly two decades, Beyoncé has sold over 100 million records, won 20 Grammy Awards, and has become the most nominated woman in the Grammy Awards history (Kot). Released one day before the 50th Super Bowl in 2016, her latest single Formation lands in popular media at a time when race relations in the United States have seen renewed public attention (Myers). The increased access to social media has made it much easier to document and disseminate violent and deadly attacks on black bodies that have been occurring outside of the public eye since the supposed success of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in eliminating racism (Stephen). In response, sociopolitical movements—most prominently the Black Lives Matter movement—have emerged as a direct

Her performance of these behaviors represents an assertion of true blackness and a method through which the black community recounts their shared history in a collaborative and public way. An interesting example of this is the funeral march sequence (Beyoncé, Formation (Explicit)). As Roach posits, funerals are often the “sites for the enunciation and contestation of topical issues” (Roach 50). Not only is the funeral march a source of celebration for an individual’s life, it also serves as a moment of gathering and reflection for a community. Its inclusion in Formation presents it as a site where the narrative of blackness can be reclaimed by the black community through a collectively honest performance of blackness that is not tainted by the presence of whiteness. In addition, the march’s ties to the recent rise in deaths of blacks across the country cannot go ignored either. The funeral march in Formation is not only a performative cue for black funerary traditions as a site of the formation of blackness, it is also a funeral for all the black people killed by white dominant power and a space to reflect on and address the issues surrounding