One of the noteworthy aspects of 2024’s “act ii: Cowboy Carter,” the second opus in Beyoncé’s Renaissance series, is the album’s cover art, which finds the mother of three wearing red, white and blue. In “American Requiem,” the first song in that album, the now 35-time winner of the Grammy Award shares her thoughts on America’s racist past. On this July 4, the 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Beyoncé will be taking her red-white-and-blue festooned concert to Washington, D.C., and perhaps causing some confusion for those who’ve associated her with pro-Black feminism and those who’ve accused her of hating America.
One minute, she’s performing at the Super Bowl dressed in homage to the Black Panther Party, and now, she’s presenting a whole stage show that’s wrapped in red, white and blue. Is she James Brown, who reportedly removed “Say It Loud! (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” from his band’s playlist and showed up in “Rocky IV” wearing red, white and blue and performing “Living in America”? Is she like Eldridge Cleaver, who was arguably the most radical member of the Black Panther Party, before a series of political transformations that ended with him being a conservative Republican who demanded that the Berkeley City Council begin its meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance?
No, that’s not what’s happening. In the most specific sense, Beyoncé, who is from Houston, appears to be showing love for that area’s Black rodeo queens who traditionally ride with the Stars and Stripes after a victory. In a March 2024 opinion piece in Bloomberg, Taylor Crumpton wrote that “to be a Black Texan, you learn how to bear hatred and love in your heart at the same time. And though some may forget because of her proximity to the glitz and glamor of Hollywood, Beyoncé is a Black Texan.”
act ii COWBOY CARTER 3.29 pic.twitter.com/A6juEeny2P
— BEYONCÉ (@Beyonce) March 19, 2024
That said, in the more general sense, Beyoncé belongs to a long line of prominent Black Americans, including artists, who’ve staked a claim to patriotism while criticizing the country.
After all, this country is ours. “Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose, and countenance such a proposition,” abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote of a plan supported by President Abraham Lincoln that would send Black Americans to Africa, the Caribbean and Central America. Marcus Garvey’s “back to Africa” movement earned similar ire from Black civil rights leaders of the 20th century who argued that the United States is Black Americans’ homeland. Beyoncé belongs to a long line of prominent Black Americans who’ve staked a claim to patriotism while criticizing the country. James Baldwin admitted to loving America and it was his love that moved him to critique the country that birthed him. I believe Beyoncé is of Baldwin’s fabric, and she loves how the Deep South’s Black Americans gave her an education in practicing Blackness that works for her, and her music and philanthropy are the weapons she uses to critique America. Even as she knows that the beauty salons and barbershops will be frequented by consumers who call her a hypocrite. Blackness is not static. Black people, like everybody else, have a right to change their views or simply be contradictory. Beyoncé’s art is open for interpretation. And she has the right to practice her Blackness however she chooses, whether it’s while wearing the Panther’s trademark beret or draping herself in the flag that Panthers, including Bobby Seale and Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, once served under while in the U.S. military. “American Requiem” begins with the words: “Nothing ends …. you change your name, but not the ways you play pretend. You change your name, but not the ways you play pretend.” A Black woman draped in her patriotic colors, to me, seems to be telling America: Black folk built this country and our labor sustains this country; we are, in fact, as American, if not more American, than you.
Darryl Robertson
Darryl Robertson is a freelance writer and research assistant for The New York Times. He is also a Justice-in-Education scholar at Columbia University. His research interests include hip-hop and understanding how the Black Power movement services its communities. He is also interested in understanding how social, geographical and historical factors contribute to hip-hop. 
