I promise yall. I was trying really hard to keep all my little feelings about Beyonce's Formation to myself. I planned to read all the {positive} thoughts, and leave the rest alone. But it turns out I have been inspired not only the video itself but by the {thoughtful} pieces that have been written about it. 

You should know that while I have always appreciated Beyonce's presence in the entertainment business, I never donned wings for the BeyHive. What I have loved most about Beyonce is how hard she works at her music career- she dances hard, she sings hard and she goes hard on the creativity. (I mean dropping an album with no announcement- like whoa!) In addition to her career, she seems to take very seriously the relationships in her life as daughter, sister, spouse and mother. Its unlikely that her life is perfect, but I dont need it to be. Beyonce puts in werk. (Yes, werk). And for that, and a handful of songs that make me dance around my living room, I give thanks. 

So, when I saw on twitter that we had a new video from Beyonce, I was prepared to watch it one time, give twitter one good scroll for black twitter reactions and move on with my weekend. Instead it was two hours before I finished processing #Formation! Truthfully, I might still be processing it.

Now, I cannot tell you what Beyonce intended for this video. I wasnt there as she made each choice. There are some references that are clear- "I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros"* doesnt require a whole lot of analysis. Beyonce fired back at anyone who assumed Blue Ivy's fro was an accident, mistake, or lack of time for a busy mother. Nope. Beyonce is digging her child's natural hair texture, and apparently so is Blue! But my point here, is that I have no intention of trying to tell you what Beyonce was trying to do. I can only take what she did and tell you how it made me feel.

Beyonce on top of a police car in the flooded waters of Katrina. 

A grill that glows like the lights of a police car. 

A corner store.

Multiple elements of Mardi Gras.

The hair store filled with wigs. 

The twang that screams southern life. 

The porch. 

Negro and Creole. 

Hot sauce in my bag. 

Even the church house made an appearance speaking to another meaning of the word "slay". For those of us who grew up in the black church, watching those going through it become slain in the Spirit was a regular Sunday ritual. 

While I probably would have loved this video no matter which pictures of black southern life she chose, it is not lost on me that Beyonce chose the ones that are considered by mainstream (and lets be honest, the bougie among us) to be the most un-respectable images.

Beyonce could have taken us to the South and showed a full-size grandmother cooking macaroni and cheese with some candied yams and biscuits in the kitchen. Or back folks in their church finest raising a handkerchief in the air, nodding contentedly at the sermon. Or college students walking the campus of an HBCU carrying heavy backpacks and school books. Or a couple jumping the broom. She could have given us some red beans and rice, a black marching band rocking the stages at a football game, or black and white photos of the civil rights movement. All entirely honest and respectable. 

Instead she gives us afros, blue hair, and blonde braids. She gives us negro and creole and nostrils like the Jackson 5. She gives us hot sauce in her bag while declaring that she wont ever submit her country roots to our respectable, bougie politics. Here, she doesnt mean "country" as equivalent to southern. She means "country" as in I am here for socks with sandals, twerking in the parking lot, pulling out hot sauce in a restaurant, wearing furs when its clearly not cold, doing whatever I want with my hair including blue, orange or platinum blonde, eating crawfish on the curb, dancing till my curls fall out in church, and she even refuses to silence the ways black queer culture has been inseparable from defining southern black life. 

Beyonce released a video that asks, "Does anything good come out of Nazareth?" and answers, "I slay. We slay".  I think thats a yes. 

And if that defiance wasnt enough for us, she goes two steps further. In the midst of all the voices shouting "if you were just obedient to authority, they would stop shooting you." Beyonce gives us a little black boy in a hoodie dancing with abandon before a line of officers in swat gear. Dancing with abandon. Fearless. Far from bowing down to the formation he stands as one, so confounding them that their hands raise in surrender.   

And then the police car sinks under the weight of her body in the flood waters of Katrina. 

The layers. I am still processing this, but suffice it to say, Beyonce has given us a powerfully defiant anthem that challenges us to rethink who is respectable, dignified, worthy. She even reminds us that MLK was "more than a dreamer" but also defiant against the established order. When alive he was far from being considered respectable. He was more than a dreamer; he was an agitator, one of the best in fact. 

All of this while giving us a battle cry for all black women to dream, work and own it, to get in formation with one another, to never forget the child-like joy of running in circles in with your friends. As her body slides under the water, she reminds us that our work is not in vain.  Our formation is defiant. Our formation acknowledges its roots. Our formation contains joy and sadness and isnt always respectable. Our formation matters.

Thanks, Beyonce. 

 *this line is actually even clearer! "I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros" Love! 

If you like this post, you may also like: Making Lemonade 

For the month of February we are committed to intentionally learning black history together. With only 29 days we wont cover it all. There are going to be a ton of people, movements, events that we will inevitably miss. But that doesn't mean we cant try to soak up as much information as we can. After all, we do believe there is much to learn from our past! 

So every day for the month of February, I am posting a link to a piece on black history on both Facebook and Twitter. I hope this is an opportunity for us to rethink some things we thought we knew, to receive fresh insight, to read from black people about themselves, and of course to ask ourselves, 'how does this information impact our work today?' 

In case you've missed the first few days, here is what we've covered so far!

• 7 Medieval Kingdoms You Should Know 
• The Atlantic Slave Trade During its Heyday and the Remarkable Life of Olaudah Equiano
• African Resistance to Slavery 
• The Half Has Never Been Told 
• When Slaves Go On Strike  

I've also added this new page so you can return here for our list of resources at the end of each week. Happy reading! 

It isnt just on MLK Day that we watch it unfold. It happens with national race incidents. It happens in heated conversations. It happens in tweets and Facebook comments. If you are someone who regularly hosts dialogues on race, this has surely happened to you. Being MLK'ed. 

"MLK would never condone those rioters." 

"MLK would tell all of us that we just need to seek peace and unity." 

"MLK said... [insert quote taken entirely out of context]" 

"MLK would promote racial healing- not your words of anger/division." 

I could probably fill a whole page with this, but you know what Im talking about. Its what happens when people want to retreat to easy answers, feel-good quotations, and rely on MLKs work instead of our own. 

This behavior is awfully convenient and void of authenticity and understanding. If we truly valued the life work of Martin Luther King Jr we would stop trying to predict "what MLK would say now" as if he died of old age. Whatever wisdom we think MLK would bring to this moment in 2016 seems to often discount that he was assassinated on a balcony, taken from his wife, his children, his friends. Why do we think MLK would say anything to us other than an indicting statement of fact, "You killed me"

But that doesnt make us feel good. Its so much easier to think of Martin Luther King Jr's death as inevitable, as that of a martyr, a heroes end to a life of public service. We'd rather not consider the bullet that ripped through his face. We dont like to talk about how his spinal cord was so severed that his death was rather quick. We dont talk about his blood spilling from his body onto the concrete balcony. We like our pictures in black and white.

Because to feel what his wife felt

To feel what his children felt

To feel what his friends felt

To feel what his supporters felt

is to invite pain over celebration, rage over rousing speeches, devastating loss over convenient platitudes. 

We do this because we dont really like to think of Martin Luther King Jr as a person, a husband, a father. We like to think of him as the stone statue in DC- large, strong, unmovable. While Martin Luther King's legacy may be all those things, it turns out he was human. He was a human who read lots of books, listened to lots of preachers, worked on the craft of writing and speaking. He was a human who laughed and cried. Who felt great pain and experienced great joy. Like most of us humans, Martin Luther King Jr evolved in his thinking over time. He took a stand for racial justice, and realized he could not talk about racial injustice without also talking about economic injustice. The more he talked about economic injustice in America, the more he recognized the underpinnings to military injustice around the world. Martin Luther King Jr was not one note. He didnt have just one thought. As he traveled, as he gained access to powerful, political spaces, as he read more and more... Martin Luther King Jr continued to grow in his thinking and his passion for the disenfranchised. 

So truth be told, we dont know what Martin Luther King Jr would say in this moment in 2016. Because had we not killed him, he would have continued to evolve, to grow, to connect the dots, to ask questions, to dig in the Bible, to be a human committed to a cause. Thats how it works. We learn to interrogate our language, our assumptions. We learn to speak truth to ourselves and to power. We learn to confront, to organize, to write, to speak, to seek greater change. We grow. But Martin Luther King's ability to speak into the modern moment of white supremacy was violently interrupted. We cant keep taking that for granted. 

So the next time we are being MLKed, we could respond by giving context to a random quote thrown our way. We could offer a differing, lesser known quote in response. We can extrapolate and postulate, for sure. (Ive certainly done all the above.) But dont hesitate to also take a moment to acknowledge the real man, made of flesh and blood, who was murdered at the age of 39 because his leadership represented such a threat to the status quo. 

This is the period at the end of every sentence MLK ever spoke. America had a chance to mobilize, to follow the immense leadership of Civil Rights leaders, to decide white supremacy needed to die a violent death. But thats not what happened. And here we sit, celebrating the life of Martin Luther King Jr, but never without acknowledging how his assassination is also our legacy until we decide that white supremacy has finally taken one body too many.    

*photo from The King Center (thekingcenter.org)

I dont know about you, but the sense of "waiting" this Advent season is feeling much more palpable than in past years. I have certainly had seasons when reflecting back over the year increased my sense of longing for our awaited King to return. But this year, it is not only the reflection that feels heavy but the present moment. 

The other day as I sat at my computer listening to Christmas music, my husband turned on the news which played in the background. The voices formed a dichotomoy that was hard to ignore as the San Bernardino shooting unfolded in the other room. 

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Confirmed at least 14 dead in the latest mass shooting, today in San Bernardino, California. 

And ransom captive Israel

This scene unfolding before us is taking place at an agency that supports people with developmental disabilities. 

That mourns in lonely exile here

You are seeing pictures here of the wounded; those who have escaped or were evacuated from the building

Until the Son of God appear

We believe there are two or three shooters. We are still waiting for more information to confirm, but officers do believe this was not just one shooter. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Wait! Wait! We believe this is the car of the shooter or shooters. They seem to be a in a shootout with police! 

Shall come to thee, Oh Israel

Just in recent days we have been rocked by the murder of Laquan McDonald and been outraged by the level of corruption trying to hide it. We experienced back-to-back mass shootings, having only recently mourned attacks around the world. Just yesterday I learned of the death of Mario Woods and cant quite express the depth of my anger at the police chief's explanation of why its justified. 

And my soul keeps singing: O come, O come, Emmanuel. 

The truth is I want to turn off the news. I want to turn away from pain and death. I want to turn up the music and tune out the mess. I want to wait without the heaviness, to acknowledge Advent only with cheer. And yet I am reminded of the way Christ stepped into the world- hated and scorned. Reminded of the immense injustice Christ's very body suffered. Reminded of the loneliness, the weeping, the betrayal Christ experienced. Reminded of the many ways Christ reached toward death, toward sickness, toward the demons. 

And I remember that Emmanuel, who came to take away the sin of the world, is coming again. 

When I was just a kid in elementary school, I remember being warned that those who aren't Christian would accuse me of believing in Christianity only because I was weak, because I needed a crutch in life. I dont remember what remedy or response was handed to us; I can only recall the warning. The older I get, the more I realize that statement is of no offense to me. I am weak. My body is exhausted. My mind is overwhelmed. My spirit is too often crushed, limping through each day. My passion flares up, driving me forward, but isnt sustainable as raging fire. I am tender and sensitive, able to be hurt. I am incapable of carrying the full weight of the news. I hold it for as long as I can, and then I must let it go. I need the force of Love in my life, need to believe in hope. This is no shame to me. I am not just a sinner in need of a Savior, I am a human in need of a better future. 

And so this Advent season, I am embracing my weakness. I am lighting candles as a symbolic way of letting the Light hold onto the grief, the pain, the death when I cannot bear it. As I wait, I will work as Love compels me, knowing it is not my work that will save the world. Emmanuel shall come to thee, Oh Israel.