Beyonce is capturing attention for controversial political messages that were embedded in her Super Bowl 50 halftime show on Sunday night, with critics and fans debating over her dancers presumably being dressed like Black Panthers and making a black power salute.
Performing her new song “Formation,” Beyonce and her dancers were dressed in all black, wore black berets and, at one point, positioned themselves in an “X” on the field — something that some observers said was done in reference to Malcolm X
Beyoncés dancers in black berets at #SB50 paying homage to the Black Panthers 50 years after their #formation in '66 pic.twitter.com/YXpzBkkm6s
— Dream Defenders (@Dreamdefenders) February 8, 2016
Following the show, several of the dancers were pictured giving the same salute around a piece of paper that reads ‘justice 4 Mario Woods’ – a black man shot dead by police in San Francisco last December. Afterwards Beyonce said that she ‘wanted people to have love for themselves’.
Beyonce's dancers paid tribute to #MarioWoods, black man killed by San Francisco police. #SB50 #BlackLives pic.twitter.com/m2Pl9i5qKL
— Jamilah King (@jamilahking) February 8, 2016
Woods was filmed being shot to death by around a dozen armed police officers in San Francisco after apparently ignoring orders to drop a knife in December last year. Woods was accused of stabbing a man around an hour earlier, but activists hit out at the shooting, saying there were likely other ways to subdue Woods without opening fire, since he wasn’t armed with a gun.
At the time Police Chief Greg Suhr said his department and San Francisco district attorney’s office would investigate the shootings. The dancers, dressed head-to-toe in black, also donned the signature black beret of the political group that operated during the Sixties and Seventies.
https://youtu.be/L_Hgh7sPDLM
Beyonce was widely expected to make a political statement during the halftime show which was headlined by Coldplay and also featured Bruno Mars. Anticipation had been building for her performance after she unexpectedly dropped the music video for the song on Saturday.
The video, the most political Beyonce has released, showed scenes of white police lining up against a black teenager and graffiti that reads ‘stop shooting us’. Another part of the video shows Beyonce in a flooded New Orleans, recalling scenes after Hurricane Katrina in which George Bush was accused of ‘not caring about black people’ by rapper Kanye West after relief was slow in reaching the area.
Within minutes of the video’s release, Twitter was awash with reactions to the fiercely political lyrics and scenes – and a cameo role from the singer’s four-year-old daughter with Jay Z, Blue Ivy.
Cuz nothing brings us all together better than angry @Beyonce shaking her ass & shouting "Negro" repeatedly. #sb50 pic.twitter.com/70ouQLwfzs
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) February 8, 2016