Members of several police organizations, including the Pasadena Police Department and the Coalition for Police and Sheriffs, held a protest Saturday near Beyoncé’s concert in Houston, Texas at NRG Stadium.
“Some of her performances we believe to be anti-police,” said Pasadena police officer Tony Ragsdale, apparently referring to Beyoncé’s Black Lives Matter-themed Super Bowl halftime show that paid tribute to the anti-police Black Panther Party.
Breitbart News previously reported that the music video for the song Formation, from Beyoncé’s latest album, Lemonade, contained copious amounts of pro-Black Lives Matter messages. One scene showed a graffitied wall with the words “STOP SHOOTING US” on it, while another featured the singer sitting on a sinking New Orleans Police Department cruiser.
Beyoncé released Lemonade less than a week before kicking off her Formation world tour. As Breitbart News previously reported, Lemonade is rife with references to racial politics. The musical film features the mothers of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, two black men whose deaths were used to launched the anti-police Black Lives Matter movement.
At one point in the short film, the voice of slain Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X is heard saying: “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”
“We don’t want for anyone to attack law enforcement in general. We think the one video she did for Super Bowl 50 encouraged that manner,” Tony Ragsdale, member of Cops Local 911, told local outlet Click2Houston.
Public furor over Beyoncé’s latest anthem had been brewing for months, well before the singer began her latest tour.
Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance was called an “outrageous attack” on “police officers, who are the people who protect her and protect us and keep us alive,” by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in February.
After telling Elle magazine that she has “so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers,” Beyoncé mocked that same police community and their families when she decided to sell “Boycott Beyoncé” merchandise, including T-shirts, cellphone cases, and hats to her fans while on tour.
According to the Houston Chronicle, members of the Nation of Islam requested that fans of the singer organize to form a counter-protest to the pro-police demonstration in Houston. In February, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan offered to dispatch the group’s security wing — the Fruit of Islam — to provide security for Beyoncé’s Formation tour.
“Beyoncé is Houston’s treasure to the world,” Robert S. Muhammad, a Houston activist and Nation of Islam spokesperson told the Chronicle. “We don’t have to agree with everything she does, but we do agree that she deserves in her hometown to be received as the ‘Queen Bey’ that she is, and we’re just part of the Beyhive.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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