Dear Mr. Anderson,
I’m sorry you feel as if Beyoncé’s halftime performance was an inappropriate example to America’s black community. As an African-American woman who grew up in a south suburb of Chicago, I think I am well versed in the “black community” as you put it. First and foremost, Beyoncé paid homage not only to the Black Panther Party but to Michael Jackson as well. Additionally, her dancers helped raise awareness of an African American man, Mario Woods, who was shot and killed by the San Francisco police.
I do not believe that many people knew of this.
Secondly, your article wanted to explain the history of the Black Panthers but you left out several KEY details:
1) It was founded by Dr. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale (educated black men) in 1966 in Oakland, California, to arm citizens and create citizen patrols to monitor the behavior of the police and the police brutality.
(Now remember this is the 1960s where black people did not have civil rights, couldn’t eat or drink at the same place as whites and were often beat and unjustly jailed. Yes, the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964, but everyone did not immediately welcome minority peoples with open arms.)
2) In 1969, the Black Panther Party started bringing in community programs to help African American people. They provided the “Free Breakfast for School Children” program, community health clinics, explanation of laws in their newsletter, etc.
3) It is known that the U.S. government targeted black groups (especially militant) to dissolve them. Lastly, you spoke of the ammo belt that Beyoncé wore, but if you know anything about previous Super Bowl entertainers, you would know that she was paying homage to Michael Jackson.
So Mr. Anderson, I’m sorry you felt offended by Beyoncé, but she is using her platform to raise light to injustices that African American people have faced for years. We are here and the system has tried to keep us down in many ways, but in the words of Kendrick Lamar: We gonna be alright!
In the future, I ask you do not have opinion pieces where you have not researched the matter fully and you also obtain the opinion of the other side as well.
Aisha Burton
burtonai@umail.iu.edu
