In "Lemonade" Beyonce warns, "You're gonna lose your wife" --which indicates that this betrayal she talking about , real-life-betrayal or art-betrayal, is not over.
Part 1 - How Infidelity Affects Daddy's Girls
Yet forgiveness has been given, by the end of "Lemonade" without woman having removed
real self
or
art-self,
her
real daughter
or her
art daughter,
from the harm
that comes from knowing
that real husbands, that real Daddys,
and real men that are currently betraying you.
Somebody said that "Lemonade" is about the way women, especially black women, pretzel themselves in order to try to "keep their family together."
Women of all shades appear to do this, from where sit. But black women seem to hold onto a love that isn't love even longer because we take the oppression outside our house to be more important than the mind numbing betrayal that's going on inside the house.
"Betrayal" has to be reduced to "small mistakes" or "cheating" because full blown betrayal is something that cannot be swept away by forgive and forget a.k.a. pseudo insta-forgiveness and fake amnesia because we all know that men will struggle not to be violent with other men that they are in relationship with when betrayal is on the table.
Countless movies and books have been made to reflect this aspect of male society. There are at least two fictional movies in theaters right now that are centered on white male superheroes coming to near deadly blows over betrayal.
The message, the reflection of reality is clear in these male dominated movies and books over the decades: Good men will and SHOULD become violent with one another over betrayal.
But women are supposed to sit with their hands folded in their laps after they exert a little frustration on their boy's toys (smashing nice cars) and just insta-forgive him for betrayal.
This is the biggest objection I have to ending of "Lemonade," I loved the imagery in the rest of it. I am so starved for positive images of black women -- even though the "thickest" woman she showed was Serena Williams.
And it's not that the insta-forgiveness CANNOT be real SOMETIMEMS. But the problem of creating a forgiveness image in the way that "Lemonade" did is that husband or art husband didn't ask for forgiveness.
That is, I object that there is no evidence of a desire for forgiveness. There's no evidence of effort that the man, real man or art man, has a desire to stop betraying her.
In my mind, there are two kinds of forgiveness and both have to do with betrayals and evil-done-you that's past --not ongoing; the circular kind and the straight line kind.
1) Forgiveness Circle: The person has done you wrong apologizes and states that it will never happen again. The person that's been done dirty accepts the apology and relationship is restored. That's a circle of forgiveness.
2) Forgiveness, a line going one way: The person has done you wrong, does not apologize, has not indicated whether or not it will happen again. You move yourself out of that person's path so they can't do X to you again. You let go of the debt they owe you (the debt being an apology and commitment to never do X again) in order to free your own mind and free your own soul.
Yeah, you may have to forgive more than once either way. And I've read an argument that having to forgive again and again, is sometimes referring to one person having to re-forgive one act of betrayal again and again because one can't quite just let it go when a person has wounded you deeply.
In other words, people are imperfect-- betrayers and forgivers both.
But the thing you don't do
"in the name of forgiveness"
is pretend you are not on a Ferris Wheel
going round and round
through the same muck again and again
because the betrayals are NOT OVER but continuous.
Forgiveness is about the past. Forgiveness is not about now. Example: Women who decide to not leave a physical abuser due to being "forgiving" are deceiving themselves.
And so are the women who allow emotional abuse of betrayal to continue ala "Lemonade"
"Faith" in somebody doing better by you is not the same as "wishing."
Wishing is all about you and your wants as you walk around with your eyes closed. "Faith" has eyes open. Faith is seeing some action in the other person that indicates they are moving, changing, doing something.
In "Lemonade" we don't see anything except anger and wishing of the woman. We do not see two people working toward each other. Art husband, rather than real husband, as represented by Jay Z in "Lemonade" is not really representing anything other than an object to be wished upon at the end.
He is two dimensional -- not even -- a person representing a wish is one dimensional or nothing.
I hope, in real life, Beyonce saw more than that. As a feminist, I'm going to assume she saw more than her own wishes superimposed upon the betrayer.
But the message in her art that she left for black teenage girls of her Beyhive is a terrible one
When a woman gives a warning, as Beyonce did in "Lemonade", one that says "You're gonna lose your wife." That woman is saying the betrayal is not seen as over. The woman is saying the action of betrayal is not firmly in the past.
Therefore, "Lemonade" seems to be saying I'm staying on the Ferris Wheel for now.
And that's an unacceptable message for young black girls who are, for the most part, being taught on a daily basis that black boys and black men are experiencing racism at a higher rate of speed than they are and that sexism and misgynoir barely exists --- and that message was being delivered before Beyonce' was even born.
A black feminist, even a flawed one, should not be reinforcing this idea.
The woman who wrote the piece quoted yesterday had sense enough to be disgusted with both of her parents. But 90% of the women I've met in my life don't have that much sense.
Most women I've known that have been mother dragged through "Lemonade" experiences as children decide early that the men of the family, that their father the cheater, that their father the neglecter, that the physical or emotional abuser is the only problem.
And I did too, for a long time.
But this is a lie too. It's just harder to see this lie.
Read More
http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2016/05/daddys-infidelity-and-birthing-lemonade.html
Updated 8 2 16
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