Week 9. Belonging and Visibility: Beyoncé, "Motherwork," and Black Motherhood

hi welcome to week nine guys um this week we're uh also going to engage something interesting hopefully um this is our last uh topic under the theme of belonging and visibility uh it's titled beonce mother work and black motherhood uh we will look at Beyonce's public construction of motherhood through her uh music video blue and her 2017 live performance we'll discuss her feminism in tandem with the politics of representing black motherhood in popular culture this week we'll be reading um Christina bad's very important essay a complicated transformation Beyonce Blue and the politics of black motherhood

it's an excellent essay where she uh you know takes time to go through U Beyonce's construction of this this Public Image of motherhood and um I urge you to you know carefully uh do it justice uh the second reading that we have is optional so it's a recommended reading but again it's it's recommended so it's not obviously mandatory um it's titled Juliet winter uh it's Juliet Winter's essay which is titled the politics of Beyonce's pregnancy rearticulating Lemonade's narrative agencies through the public construction of black motherhood now um this is also a very interesting essay where

you know winter does talk about essentially what we're going to discuss today so if you could skim through it you know just just a little bit great if not great as well okay um I'm very excited about this week's topic because there is so much that can be discussed about Beyonce right in terms of feminism her participation in um African-American sociopolitical commentary uh for example in terms of her album lemonade um right her celebrity image what role Blackness plays in her celebrity image how her uh body is hypersexualized how we review her body um you

know um in popular culture yeah there's there's a lot that we can do and I can go on and on there's a myriad of academic work that is being done or already been done on her because you know she occupies this Mammoth uh position in Black popular culture but what we will specifically focus on is this Theory called mother work right and how um Beyonce's um identity which revolves around her motherhood reckons with Mother work especially in her um music video blue and her Grammy performance and how this idea of mother work sort of furthers

uh the depiction of her black motherhood in popular culture okay so next we have um a picture of her pregnancy announcement with the twins right before her Grammy performance in just less than 8 hours the picture had been liked by 6.3 million people on social media what is important about her pregnancy R and her subsequent Grammy performance is the ways in which she um narrativized her pregnancy through her pregnant body and made black motherhood into a visual narrative in mainstream popular culture she uses her pregnant body as a spectacle further valorizing motherhood the question is

why is the concept of black motherhood so complex which is exactly what we're going to deal with we will explore what it means for Beyonce to inhabit both maternity and Blackness where one sphere which is motherhood uh is meant to imply safety while at the same time uh the other is racialized in how it impacts um her position of motherhood um and further imate you know further uh uh complicates the crisis of uh black motherhood although Beyonce is you know definitely not the first uh celebrity who um uh dealt with her pregnancy in a public

manner or who you know made motherhood uh one of her um seminal artistic expressions and she's certainly not the last however there is a lot um you know um that is imbricated within this narrative right her um sexuality her expression of femininity her feminism her afroamerican uh sociopolitical issues stance right all of this happens through her her um image of black motherhood so I think it warrants important uh attention so yeah let's do due uh diligence to it my God what's up with my tongue okay sorry about that the first thing that we will do

is look at Beyonce's 2017 Grammy performance she performed the songs love drought in uh uh sand castles transforming these songs into a celebration of black motherhood and solidarity between women as mothers now if you haven't watched the video already I urge you to pause the lecture go back watch the video and come back cuz you don't know what I'm going to talk about unless you've watched the video the impact the visceral impact that the video has is insane so um I I urge you to watch both the videos and then come back to the lecture

so her Grammy performance right here evokes images of her Rising as a fertility Gess also evoking Madonna imagery from Yoruba as as well as Christian Traditions bad notes uh that this performance was boldly embodied with the intersection of artistic expression motherhood and black Womanhood now Beyonce's decision to represent black motherhood in terms of the sensual um bodily and religious is active as she actively chooses to use her artistic Agency for self-expression of a motherhood Beyonce embodies the Yoruba goddess ocean here who is known for her powerful maternal instincts her um Persona primarily evokes uh the

Yoruba goddess ocean as well as uh the Roman uh archetype of uh goddess Madonna figure and you know critics have also said that there are hints of the Hindu goddess khi who's associated with love death and sexuality I have an image here of each of the figures for you right here so uh on the left we have Madonna this is um the figure of uh the Yuba goddess ocean and this is the Hindu goddess Khali so um narrativizing her pregnant body beonce produces gender on the surface of her body itself right as she enacts her

feminine subjectivity through the act of embracing her pregnant belly as she's performing um or you know she takes these little moments during the performance to uh you know construct her femininity through her uh impending motherhood from her beaming smile um windblown hair the placement of her hand on her hip to the delicate Embrace of her belly she makes a declaration that is not merely about her impending motherhood but also makes her motherhood that discourse of popular culture coming back to our earlier question why is that viewing black motherhood in popular culture so complex now these

images that Beyonce constructs um as Juliet winter argues align um with her you know maternity uh that construct empowered black Womanhood that exist historically geographically and ideologically outside of the racialized formations of motherhood embedded in the US culture so what this essentially means is that in the dominant hegemonic American popular discourse this sort of black motherhood has never been reckoned with right the images that have been produced are you know they're controlled through primarily white supremist uh patriarchal images right so the way uh black Womanhood or black motherhood is reviewed is well not reviewed viewed

we are reviewing it popularly how it's viewed is through these you know stereotypical controlled images now white models of motherhood a test to Motherhood as true Womanhood right where the woman's identity is rooted in motherhood and Domesticity however it is always supposed to be expressed in private right and it's supposed to remain absent from public spheres the notion of motherhood is that you know you um offer care and nurturing in private spheres right because well this is the old notion of the white models of motherhood as you couldn't perform your you know motherhood um in

the public domain this notion of motherhood primarily excluded workingclass women women and women of color from the category of becoming true women which means that even though um they would be mothers uh or they would occupy uh normative or non-normative motherhood it would exist in a realm that is outside their reality so they could not see true Womanhood despite whatever they did these condem discourses on motherhood bad uh asserts emerges from a history of racist policies and practices enforced on black and other racialized women's bodies especially in relation to reproduction and kinship this is to

say that you know images of motherhood and how motherhood or kinship is disseminated has always been controlled right through the uh White supremist patriarchal structures so it's it's something that has never been in this in this public discourse to this extent which is why it can be unsettling and excessive right when you you view a black woman who's pregnant and who's embracing it in all her glory anyway so in popular culture um black motherhood is portrayed in a way that is often what becomes a project of internalized racism as um you know going back to

a very first class when Bell hook says this in her um um book Black looks right um so popular culture has often controlled the images that represent black women the most popular form of africanamerican motherhood that has been disseminated has been the mamy archetype as seen in you know movies like the uh the help or big Bama's house um the Mami archetype is constructed as a faithful and maternal slave as sonita Moss writes t Illy working to care for her white charges so she often is portrayed as overweight older and inevitably uh asexual as she

cannot be threatening to the actual mother or um you know the white mother of the children this is also then becomes an extension of the africanamerican image of the matriarch right the strong matriarch of the household um Patricia Hill Collins has said that you know the control of these uh images of the mamy The Matriarch and the welfare mother are practices that justify um that the practices that are designed uh to oppress sorry about that the other representations of black motherhood have been of the Jezebel archetype right who is served uh as who serves as

the um binary opposite to the m figure named after a character in the Bible who is essentially quote unquote a lose woman so the Jezebel is culturally hypersexualized to almost delegitimize motherhood and exist in direct opposition to Motherhood itself the third figure is the sapphire perhaps the most controlling image of black women seen in popular culture um which as Moss writes uh signifies popular cultures venerated image of the neck rolling finger snapping sharp Tong angry black woman right the women who's sassy snaky right those images of black women that have penetrated popular culture completely um

so I have an image here of the mamy archetype The Jezebel and the sapphire archetype uh B has argued that the legacy of slavery as black feminist Scholars remind us shapes the ongoing pathologizing of black mothers in dominant discourses but it also means that when black women assert their status as mothers they're resisting this white supremist Legacy this is why Bon's uh public portrayal of black motherhood is revolutionary B further uses Melissa Harris Perry's assertion that when a black woman claims public ownership of her children she helps rewrite this other history she challenges the negative

images of black motherhood that dominate the public discourse so Beyonce's public portrayal or public construction of a black motherhood is hence revolutionary right because popular culture has disseminated images that are so controlled and that are so in a that um when you see or when you reckon with this you know this excessive idea or this celebrated idea of black motherhood it it threatens you right it unsettles you you don't know what to do with it so that's revolutionary in itself um Beyonce's song Blue is hardly the first pop song to follow the genre of conventional

uh confessional motherhood genre right so it warrants our attention still as Beyonce constructs it as a treaties for her own motherhood so if you've watched the song it's shot beautifully right as Beyonce sings to Blue IV expresses her love uh to her as you know as um as verbal confirmation uh of her love to Blue IV um it's shot beautifully the lyrics are generative they're beautiful but what happens through this video throughout this video is that Beyond say is you know almost constructing and not she's she's letting us into her world of motherhood right so

she's constructing this public image of her motherhood for us so she's almost performing her motherhood so the lyrics of the song directly address her daughter which is why it fits into The Narrative of confessional uh motherhood songs um and what this does is helps Beyonce Forge a path of relatability and compassion with her audience right because she's singing These you know these um these love songs to her daughter so that helps her connect with the audience especially uh mothers and young mothers so it becomes a public performance of her motherhood if we think of what

Hook's um introductory reading of the course said we are reminded that loving Blackness is resistive so the public performance of black motherhood here the radicalness of showing affection towards a black child while drawing compassion and relatability for her black motherhood is transgressive in itself in a racist world love and nurturing even at at its most constrained can be a revolutionary act and it is imperative to remember that so the public construction of a black motherhood here is inherit ly resistive for many women working in popular music singing confessionally about motherhood can involve a Frau engagement

with normativity however as bad argues Beyonce's work advances as a more generative model as it becomes a revolutionary Act of representing an image of black motherhood instead of regurgitating the controlled images of black women produced in popular culture B introduces us to um the theoretical practice of mother work it was introduced uh actually by uh Camille Wilson Cooper who's a sociologist who extended this transformational potential of mothering beyond the personal to the space of liberatory practice where mother work she says could entail radical Liberation cultural pride and has the transformative potential of uplifting the community

so when westernized Notions of mothering kote images of women caring loving and nurturing uh protecting their children the mother work of women of color according to psha Hill Collins oops sorry my notes just fell off my bad guys um sorry so uh yeah when the westernized model uh you know the westernized Notions of motherhood cootes images of women um protecting their child mother work for racialized women for women of color according to Patricia Hill Collins Is Anchored in a specific racialized concept of survival power and identity now what this means is that mother work for

racialized women or it's especially used in the context of racialized women this term becomes this performance of motherhood where you um perform your motherhood in the public sphere to engage uh a transformative um potential of you know uplifting your community and also um you're representing the marginalized in on the public platform right on uh you in the public discourse being a marginalized identity so mother work is one of those marginalized identities like Stuart Hall had mentioned right that through mother work you're sort of um creating these potentialities for your identity that does not that does

not exist in honic discourse so Camille Wilson Coop uh espoused the theory of mother work in relation to African-American Mother's involvement to the child's education so initially her theory of mother work revolved around the socio logical context of maternal Authority in their um child's educational engagement right like the what say does the mother have in the child's educational engagement the choice of school etc etc it became an act of reclaiming maternal Authority in the child's life so largely then mother work is a way to reconcile with um your maternal Authority in a racist patriarchal society

that assumes the absence of mother in tough important decisions quote unquote black feminist uh explications of mother work come together to illuminate the social structural and um cultural dynamics of the mother's influence in the child's growth and engagement of the world to give an example examp of this Beyonce herself has claimed that in her speech that it's important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty so they can grow up in the world and have no doubt that they're beautiful intelligent and capable this means that her portrayal of black motherhood is

calculative right what she's doing is performing a mother work which embodies being seen in the public discourse right when you see a um a black motherhood that is not uh a regurgitation of uh stereotypical uh images when you see a motherhood that is anchored in these racialized experiences that is a response to oppressive um measures it's generative right it comes this this model of resistance in popular culture okay so um Cooper argues that mother work is uh countercultural to the colorblind aims of the US Society in the 21st century which means that colorblind uh cultures

would argue the legitimacy of mother work you would say why do you need something like the like mother work quote unquote um why would you need something like black mother work in the public discourse but we need to understand that these claims hold no water and that Beyonce has to actively embody mother work in order to make black motherhood a part of the public discourse certain art history professors have uh decoded her visuality in uh her Grammy performance and claimed that what is interesting is that goddess ocean is not only known for protecting her um

U children but also for protecting her unborn children in resolving um transgenerational trauma so Beyonce assumes this Afrocentric positionality also as a way to pay homage to her uh African uh incestry we see this in Beyonce's performances she particip with her mother Tina noes and her daughter Blue IV she draws contemporary relevance to the transg uh transgenerational ocean reference further mobilizing a mother work that pins black motherhood at the center through Visual and oral references to her history furthering a shared experience through it she embodies a mother work that um as Daphne Brooks has said

invents ways to maintain the Integrity of black female bodies as sites of intellectual knowledge philosophical vision and aesthetic worth her performance becomes resistive for several reasons that Kevin Fallon has uh astutely noted in his The Daily Beast article how often do we see pregnant women exalted hailed as leaders of the resistance sensual and sexual in their pregnancy Regal in their bodies so her um you know construction of this this black motherhood is so seminal as like you know most of popular culture depends on representation how you are representing images right that have always been circulated

so she flips the idea of black motherhood that has been in the public discourse and she offers a notion of motherhood that is personal to her through her journey she sort of tries to um make it a shared experience a communal solidarity experience between all mothers right of course that can be fraught and it can have you know its own perils when you think of universalizing motherhood and it is problematic to think of that but let's not um you know let's not think of the Perils of universalizing motherhood but focus on the importance of or

the the Revolutionary Act of displaying uh the black pregnant body so black mother work also manifests itself in ways where it seeks self-definition through the love for her child right in blue Beyonce's motherhood serves as a site where um black women Express and learn the power of self-de so Patricia Hill Collins in uh her work on black motherhood has said some women view motherhood is truly burdensome condition that stifles their creativity exploits their labor and makes them Partners in their own oppression others see motherhood as providing a base for self-actualization status in the black community

and a catalyst for social activism so Beyonce's blue is an example of the latter as she seeks to mobilize her public performance of motherhood as a transgressive Act of loving Blackness itself right she performs um her idea of motherhood and uses it in her own way to perform social activism through mother work as she Embraces Blue Ivy in zoomed in uh shots the lyrics highlight moments of connection with her child with phrases like looking into your eyes holding me tight and I feel alive um she sings We say words that don't mean a thing yet

evokes these affirmations for the child which become her interaction with her daughter right voicing your love for your child and you know uh reclaiming affirmations for your child becomes so important especially in a culture which does not let you or frown um frowns uh on expressing your emotions towards your child especially uh you know such a young young um child so the public performance of black motherhood in this song becomes an immersive play between um the mother and child where Beyonce constructs her motherhood as a spectacle itself sonita Moss uh has noted that black mothers

have a history of subverting Oppression through relationships with their children hence this this affirmative um you know sense that the lyrics evoke becomes so important cuz in part you know through her mother work activism beonce is joining this long tradition in the music video as Beyonce looks upon her child with the most loving gaze lifting her High into the air as B writes she carries her daughter on her hip hugging her clothes and closing her eyes savoring the moment of blending her love for art and family into song playing with the phrase hold on on

and its many meanings um you know it could mean Blues hold on to Beyonce's heart the literal Embrace and the mother's wish to Slow Time To Make It Last Forever Beyonce again displays a feminine subjectivity like in her gramy performance that becomes you know this omage to Motherhood itself in the Grammy performance it was an impending motherhood right um but here again it becomes this this spectacle of romanticizing motherhood or what motherhood means to her making black motherhood a theatrical event you know it becomes this like so through Beyonce's portrayal of um public construction of

her black motherhood what she does is makes it into a theater it make she makes it into something that you have to witness that you have to actively watch that you have to you know reckon with be a warrior too and despite it you know having its problems of how she's romanticizing motherhood throughout and how we've learned that there are intersectional realities and someone at beyon his position can very well you know romanticize motherhood however what is important here again is the visuality of it the visual resistance of viewing black motherhood and the mother work

that goes into publicly portraying a black motherhood that is excessive that is loud that is celebratory and that is threatening and love is you know the the Bedrock of all of these facets love for her child right love for um you know her experience of motherhood itself and this leaves an indelible Mark in the cultural memory her you know making the motherhood as this theatrical spectacle Aisha darham uh is this professor who has argued that Beyonce has successfully performed a range of black femininities throughout her musical um career where she speaks to the black working

and the middle class sensibilities while also fulfilling uh you know her Dynamic roles is the Hip Hop Bell and the US exotic other which is a whole different uh discourse now Beyonce's feminism has been you know a longstanding debate um a lot of critics have argued whether you know she's if she's a feminist or if it becomes you know um a performance of feminism and does not a achieve what it intends to her pinning black motherhood at the center however even though fraught with imperfections is certainly though a revolutionary act it is up to us

to assume if her mother work is a part of a feminist Mission now my job is to you know leave these little like just plant these seeds in your head and see what you make of it so I am excited to know what you make of her mother work in what ways if you do think uh that it becomes transformative or resistive now if at all you choose to analyze this phenomenon in um your second short analysis I am very looking forward to what you make of Beyonce's um mother work but I hope that you

uh you know sit with uh this lecture today and yeah uh engage with it in a way that it speaks to you okay thanks guys and I hope you have a great rest of the week thank you