On February 15th, 2016, the University of Mississippi hosted the Formation Forum discussing Beyoncé’s latest song, “Formation,” and its accompanying video. The forum, which took place at the Ole Miss Student Union, was lead by Alexandria White, the assistant director of the Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement. Mrs. White decided to wear a “Keep Calm Black Girls Rock” T-shirt that seems to go against the Center’s mission statement of “creating a supportive and inclusive campus environment that … connects and engages students.” During the Forum, Mrs. White is quoted as saying she identifies more with “Malcolm X than with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”, stated her intent to buy a T-shirt saying “I’m here to make you uncomfortable,” and urged Forum goers to “resist authority and question authority” as a way to grow, which set the tone for the entire event. The forum began with a viewing of the “dirty” version of Beyoncé’s “Formation” music video and then moved into a discussion of images displayed throughout the video. The video, directed by Beyoncé and Melina Masoukas, uses images of sinking cop cars, a hooded black child dancing in front of police officers dressed in riot gear, “stop shooting us” graffiti, and the “hands up, don’t shoot” reference to further the misguided Black Lives Matter movement.

The forum then moved into audience discussion of the Black Panther Party, inclusiveness, the image of a partially submerged police car and the police line in riot gear, African-Americans who have died, and the idea of society advancing. When the topic moved to the Black Panthers, one of the audience members said, “Black Panthers is not a hate group; it’s a group created against hate groups… [P]eople bashing [Beyoncé] for her Black Panther imagery [has to do with] their lack of information of the group itself.” In reality, the Black Panther Party was formed on the belief that Dr. King’s policy of non-violent protest had failed, and the party adopted the idea of violent revolution from Malcolm X.

The topic of discussion then moved to the inclusiveness of Beyoncé’s lyrics. The song’s lyrics, like My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bama I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils, appear to apply exclusively to African-Americans. An audience member said “I’m all about inclusivity, but sometime you just have to have a message for your culture… We are inclusive without changing up our language because that’s a space for us.” When I heard this, I thought of the obvious double standard in having a “message for your culture” used by minority communities. If the white community tried to have a message just for our culture, it would be instantaneously shut down and labeled as racist and bigoted.

The image of a partially submerged police car and the line of police used in the “Formation” music video are seen by some as disrespectful to law enforcement. White addressed this and went on to state, “My brother is a police officer, a Chicago police officer. I have high respect for police officers but he tells me there’s crooked ones and some police officers understand that under that blue shield there is some crookedness, there are people who are trigger happy who want to shoot someone 16 times with no weapon on them. They understand that.” Running with White’s view of police officers as crooked and trigger happy, another forum goer stated, “With regards to disrespect towards police, the video very accurately portrays what’s going on in society and specifically in New Orleans post Katrina. The police murdered black people there; they were shooting off a bridge at people down below, so I think she [Beyoncé] put it nicely, and the actual reality is it was far worse.”

The topic then flowed into African-Americans who have been killed not only by police but also by “white civilians.” The discussion included Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, and Tamir Right. Another audience member discussed the graffiti image in the video: “I think that it’s funny that the writing on the wall says ‘stop shooting us’ because Jordan Davis wasn’t shot by a police officer — he was actually shot by a white civilian — so I think it’s very important for us to recognize it doesn’t say, ‘Police, stop killing us and stop shooting us,’ it says ‘Stop shooting us.’ And she’s very intentional about those words she put there and the imagery.” Which lead to another comment on the graffiti image:

This image, to me, is the continuation of state-sanctioned violence against black women, black queer, and the black LGBT community. It’s a continuation of state-sanctioned violence against our people in general, and we have black men being killed in general; it’s a total decimation of people. Not just shooting us, but wholesale killing through systematically not providing goods, medication, healthcare services in general. This withholding of resources for our community [is] leading to death. Little children are being killed by police, [and] they didn’t ask to be killed [or] involved in that, but somehow they are. She’s speaking to that asking if this should continue happening.

The thought that America engages in “state-sanctioned violence” against any of its citizens is absurd. As to the comment about “systematically not providing goods,” I’m not aware of any state in our country that withholds public or private goods from any citizens based on their sex, ethnicity or sexual preferences.

In closing, the forum discussed the idea of society advancing and one participant stated, “You can say that we’ve moved on and in actuality a lot of us have moved on, a lot of us don’t walk around just assuming that everyone is racist, or everyone is out to kill us. However, we see what is happening with our communities, and that makes us aware. For me personally, it makes me even more proud of my heritage.” The discussion of moving forward and looking toward our future, not at the past, was one that resonated with me. All societies have a past, and it’s not always as enlightened as our current state, but societies are constantly evolving to correct past and present wrongs. We have to look at our past as a guide to evolving in the future. White is encouraged by “hearing people research the Black Panther Party. That’s great, that’s wonderful — don’t stop there…. I think as students, as faculty, as staff, it is a comment upon us that we press the envelope that we make people feel uncomfortable.” While I don’t see making people feel uncomfortable as a way to further our society, White views this as a necessity to advance our society.

Crawford Moore is a junior at The University of Mississippi. Email him at [email protected].