The infamous anti-Beyoncé protest was scheduled to begin at 8am today outside the NFL headquarters in New York, but we’re still waiting to see if people will actually show up. The event and the organization that created it, called Proud of the Blues, have only encouraged pro-Beyoncé protesters to come out in her defense, and further raised suspicions about the group’s aims and pure existence. For starters, it seems that only three real-life haters have shown their faces, while dozens of others from the BeyHive have arrived with signs in support of the Queen B and Black Lives Matter.
The Eventbrite post that started it all was titled “Anti-Beyoncé Protest Rally – New York,” but the post detailed its disapproval of the general Black Lives Matter movement and the Black Panthers as well. Proud of the Blues doesn’t have a very strong following, especially since the group’s social media and web presence appear to have been created entirely within the past few days, with a domain extension from the Central African Republic. Its Facebook and Twitter accounts are dedicated to calling out anti-police behavior with statuses like “racist alert,” as well as to supporting Donald Trump and rallying against the acceptance of Syrian refugees into the United States. The tone of the pages is hyperbolic and obsessive, making it seem like a gigantic joke. Upon observing its timelines, the whole collective of conservative movements that the group stands behind seem to be triggered entirely by Beyoncé’s one performance and one video.
The few stray protesters who actually made it to the NFL building today seemed to be focused on defending the police force rather than discussing Beyoncé’s artistic choices specifically, and judging from what coverage we’ve seen so far, they didn’t have much else to say.
The spotlight has instead been on Black Girl Rising, an organization that mustered support for the event, “Get in Formation: Anti-Anti-Beyoncé Protest Rally,” which invited the public to counter the original protest by calling people to defend Beyoncé and those harmed by police violence (“particularly Black women and girls”). Supporters have been carrying signs that read, “Why are people afraid of black pride?” and “No outrage over videos of Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland” and others killed as a result of police misconduct.
The case against Beyoncé is really struggling, and today’s “protest” — if we can even call it one — was weak to say the least. There’s a good chance that the whole thing was started by a prank, but today’s events have helped to illustrate where both sides of the argument stand — quite literally. It certainly puts into perspective what the arguments made against her and her beret-wearing, all black-clad dancers are, and helps us understand that this is not just about Beyoncé.
Credits
Text Blair Cannon
Photo via Instagram