Miami police officers have announced they will boycott Beyoncé’s Formation tour, possibly going so far as refusing to sign up to staff the Spring show in Miami. The spokesman for the Miami Fraternal Order of Police says Beyoncé’s halftime performance “shows how she does not support law enforcement.”
You know those Rorschach tests psychologists use? The ones with ambiguous images and people are supposed to say what the images bring to mind? Then the shrink can tell stuff about the person’s mentality from what they said? Well, if Beyoncé’s "Formation" performance were a Rorschach and the patient were the Miami police union, a shrink’s reaction would be “Defensive, much?”
"Formation" made a huge splash the weekend it dropped for being both unapologetically awesome and unapologetically Black. When Beyoncé performed a segment of the song at the Superbowl, her background dancers dressed in costumes that were reminiscent of the Black Panther party’s iconic look, and the video music includes a shot of a wall bearing the spread-painted legend “Stop Shooting Us.” It also shows a child in front of a line of cops in riot gear, the boy dancing joyfully until the cops raise their hands in a gesture of surrender.
What Beyoncé meant by all of those is shrouded in some mystery, since, true to form, Beyoncé has said nothing other than that her Formation tour will benefit kids injured by lead filled water in Flint, MI. It’s very easy to see the pro-Black messages and the celebration of Black culture throughout the song and video. However, there are no overtly anti-white or anti-cop messages in either the images or the words. If people are finding those messages, welp. That probably says more about them and how they envision race relations in the US than it does about Beyoncé.
