"Solange: A Seat At Our Table"

Hi everyone,
This past Spring semester, I took a class on African-American female entertainers having agency within their careers. My final paper was a discussion of the cultural and political relevance of 4 songs from Solange's phenomenal 2016 album "A Seat at the Table." I'm going to give you one of my favorite snippets from it below. This is my analysis of "Mad". Enjoy.

“MAD”

   This song may very well be the most important on this album. It is simultaneously an anthem and an acquiescence. "You got the right to be mad." This is Solange's direct response to the "angry Black woman" stereotype. She sings it so sweetly you wonder if she's actually mad at all. But yes, she is, and yes, it's okay. She also responds to the common comment: "You should learn to get over it. You can't be mad forever,” with just one sentence: "Got a lot to be mad about." You don’t even have to think much about it to realize she is entirely correct. Some issues like police brutality and the criminalization of young Black youth, especially those which seems to roll into headlines so often it's hard to keep from becoming desensitized are particularly upsetting for Black women raising sons. There's also the condition of women's prisons which house mainly women of color. There’s the continuous threat to defund Planned Parenthood which does so much more than provide abortions and provides services to the lower economic status communities which are majority Black and minority groups. There’s the wage gap and inequality in the workplace, again because of Blackness and femininity separately. There is also the prevalent negative connotations around being an intelligent, risk-taking, no-games-played Black woman in the workplace who’s good at her job, over-simplified and degraded by some as a “bitch.” Then we have sexual assault and the rampant rape culture victims are forced to experience, like the women who according to Damon Wayans are “unrapeable", leaving Bill Cosby innocent of all charges (of which at last count there were 45), not to mention the painful history of the concept of being unrapeable which I have discussed previously. Frankly the list goes on and on. These are issues that matter to Black women on a personal level, their feelings of anger and distress over them should not be brushed aside. These are problems that should not be problems anymore. One of the reasons they still are is because Black women have continuously been told to “get over” them.

   Another particularly poignant lyric is when Solange says a girl asks her why “she’s always blaming?” In Solange’s defense, there is a difference between incorrectly placing blame on someone and the negative connotation with which society usually perceives the word, and blaming as an act of calling someone out for their wrongdoing. I believe Solange’s purpose is the latter. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “blame” is a transitive verb meaning “1. to find fault with; 2. a. to hold responsible, b. to place responsibility for.” So when Solange calls out someone, she’s not hurling accusatory words at them, she’s placing obligation where it ought to be.

   “Where’d your love go?” Solange’s friend full of questions asks. The answer is unclear. It’s possible we’ve gone so long attempting to abstain from adhering to the “angry Black woman stereotype” we don’t remember how to love but I don’t believe that’s the case. It seems equally possible our “love” is just harder to get, not necessarily gone. We’re so tired of being hurt and abused and judged by society that we may seem mad, callous, scorned or unloving on the outside when in actuality, we’re just protecting ourselves from further hurt and the internal damage of abuse.

   The cultural significance found when Solange sings “I said I’m tired of explaining, Man this shit is draining, but I’m not really allowed to be mad” is where we turn next. She reminds society that even though the “angry Black woman” stereotype exists, we are simultaneously not “allowed” or supposed to be mad. The reasoning behind this could be due to a multiplicity of things. The reasons that come to the fore are Black loyalty and the again the phenomenon of the “Black superwoman.” As discussed earlier, this alternative stereotype to the “angry Black woman” positions Black women as able to overcome and accomplish everything that crosses our paths, and then some. Black women are portrayed in media and all areas of consumption as able to hold families together (especially broken ones), keep multiples jobs, raise multiple children, perhaps even multi-generational children, and put a hot meal on the table each night and barely break a sweat. This Herculean effect also leads to burnout and being constantly asked, “where’d your love go?” Says Elizabeth Higginbotham in the Black women’s studies anthology “But Some of Us Are Brave:” “Even though many Black women are able to overcome difficult situations, Black women are not ‘superwomen’ devoid of needs and emotions.”

   A study conducted in 2009 by J. Celeste Walley-Jean of Clayton State University, set out to see if there was any empirical data to support the widespread, generational, sexist “angry Black woman” stereotype. Her findings proved exactly the opposite. Black women, young Black women in particular, were recorded to have “significantly less frequent angry feelings in situations where they may receive criticism, perceived disrespect, and negative evaluations (i.e., angry reaction). Furthermore, younger women reported a greater tendency to experience and suppress intense angry feelings rather than expressing them either physically or verbally.” This contradicts the hegemonic belief Black women are consistently, naturally angry. A stereotype once circulated is incredibly difficult to deconstruct, let alone relearn but we have to start somewhere. Instead of authors trying to figure out how to get Black women to accept their inner “angry Black woman,” there should be more conversation on fixing the concerns we’re all so supposed mad about.

   It is not easy to understand how Solange reviews an extensive list of wrongs done to Black women by society without ever raising her voice. The brilliance behind the idea however, is incredibly clear. Instead of creating a record which consists of her “going off”, she calmly describes the injustices Black women have endured and politely but firmly states that those responsible need to check themselves immediately as their behavior will no longer be tolerated. She purposefully keeps her voice in a soothing croon, the clarity of her voice making full comprehension of the lyrics easier. All the better for listeners to really hear her. Because though she was speaking about a specific minority audience, Solange was also speaking to multiple larger audiences who, it is clear, do not understand the injustices they’re perpetuating. Her low, light voice telling you how she should not be perceived as always mad, simply because she cares about issues that effect her and her loved ones directly addresses and fights back against the “angry Black woman” stereotype. Further, Solange’s ability to sing in this manner keeps you thinking about what you’ve heard, long after the music stops playing.

Resources

1. Blame. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved May 08, 2017, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blame
2. Edwards, S. (2015, September 06). Damon Wayans Defends Bill Cosby, Calls Victims 'Unrapeable' . Retrieved May 08, 2017, from http://jezebel.com/damon-wayans-defends-bill-cosby-calls-victims-unrapeab-1729031868
3. Hull, A. Bell-Scott, P., & Smith, B. (1982). All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (2nd ed.). New York, NY: The Feminist Press.
4. Walley-Jean, J. Celeste. (2009). Debunking the Myth of the “Angry Black Woman”: An Exploration of Anger in Young African American Women. Black Women, Gender Families, 3(2), 68-86. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/blacwomegendfami.3.2.0068 

If you want to read the rest of the paper in full, the link is here for you.