Black People Cannot Afford to Go Apeshit

By:  Black Conservative (@BlackConservative93)

On 16 June 2018, Beyonce announced a surprise album called Everything Love and released another pseudo-woke music video called Apeshit featuring her husband Jay-Z.  After seeing the music video for the first time, I saw that they cleverly incorporated elements from Black Panther to Tariq Nasheed’s Hidden Colors.

The video starts in a museum as the Carters marvel upon famous portraits and paintings.  Once the beat drops the art begins to show depictions of white men from various artistic eras and this is where I fall in love with the cinematography because it is pure genius.  The white paintings tell a story of white supremacy and slavery.  The Apeshit reference is the King Kong fear that white people have of black people.  Ever since President Obama’s first term in office, white people have been more vocal over gun rights in fear of the supposedly race war soon to come.  The lyrics even had me going apeshit.  The gorilla has been stigmatized as a savage brute, yet it has become the black man’s spirit animal like it has been in comic books such as Marvel’s Man-Ape.  WWE Hall of Famer, Mark Henry, was known as the Silverback Gorilla (yeah I know it’s not compliment) and in Greek life.

As for me, I admire the gorilla as a strong animal that is fearless and is the apex of masculinity in the animal kingdom.  Yet with the love of the music video’s symbolism, I am more disappointed with the delivery and timing of its release.  Black artists are constantly telling common black folks to stay woke by stopping their support of white businesses in order to fight racism, yet as we bleed and die on the streets, these black celebrities live in white majority suburbs.  They cheerlead the fight, yet are never there to even aid the actual fight.  The cry for African American retaliation to be seen as Black Identified Extremism has become a marketing tool.  Look at the affect of the love-hate relationship Michael B. Jordan has on his black female fanbase after the release of Black Panther.  He played Erik Killmonger who had a blood thirsty vendetta to kill T’Challa and take the throne of Wakanda.  Black women were moved at his aggression and untamed anger sprinkled with catchy woke quotes.  Yet, black women could not separate real life from acting and so Michael B. Jordan is harassed and becomes a trending topic every time he is seen with a white woman.  On a larger scale, Black Panther won the hearts of many black people, yet its failure to funnel back to the black community fell flat.  The anger of black men who want revenge against white supremacy has been the calling card for Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino and J. Cole.  It is not to say that they are using the energy for clout or fame, but my problem is that not all black artists should speak on black issues.  It was bad enough that once upon a time black people egged on Cardi B as a woke goddess.

The Baltimore Riots of 2015 was a perfect example of a much needed action.  Unfortunately, it was all unchanneled anger with no mission objectives.  Now the media will slam the protestors for destroying their own community, yet we have already debunked that notion that our community is leached by immigrants from Asia.  Instead of challenging the protestors over that, the better question that should have been asked is now that these white businesses are destroyed and the owners are more terrified than ever, who will hire black youths once the dust is settled?  Granted, this has already happened and the riot is almost forgotten, but this analysis shows that we need better tactics and going apeshit for nothing is more of a liability.

Jay-Z and Beyonce bother me as leaders of woke music.  Beyonce is not any more woke in an fashion.  Granted “Formation” was nice and catchy.  The problem with her leading the voice of woke black women is that she spends too much time trying to be the blackest woman in white spaces.  From the Grammys to the Super Bowl to Coachella (2018), Beyonce loves white people even in hostile places.  During her Coachella performance, she entertained white kids with a taste of HBCU culture, yet when it comes to black venues she is too good to perform.  Why is her best performances white funded events?  When I type ‘Beyonce BET Performance’ the latest thing she did was with a collaboration with Kendrick Lamar in Freedom in 2016 and Deja Vu in 2006.  Before black people can boycott the NFL Jay-Z, we need an alternative for the black men who still have contracts.  We have to respect the fact that most black men in sports are one thin ice.  The players have already invested years of lives just to be in the playoffs, or to even get on a team with good or bad stats.  I do not see black men establishing a negro league version of the NFL that plays just as good, so respect to those who do not have the luxury to kneel during the National Anthem.

Unlike the coups and regime changes we see on the news in foreign countries, America is not third world.  What can black people who do not even believe in the 2nd Amendment in the first place do against tactical units, armored vehicles and politicians.  Even our anger is unforgivable as we may never be in good graces with white people.  Not like it matters, but black people still have access to jobs, money and place to stay; so tell me what happens when the debit card is denied and the feds break into the house?  We are not prepared, so we need to stop acting as if this is a game or it will simply just blow over.  African Americans are out matched and gunned even against the Alt-Right and other white supremacist organizations.  It is not to say that just because we are losing it equals to defeat; no it just means we are still in the fight.