What I, A White Man, Want Everyone To Know About The Power Of Black Women

I’m a white man and a teacher. Much of my work over the past six years has involved meticulously analyzing Beyoncé’s music, videos, and career alongside important black feminist writers ― in classrooms, during speaking engagements, and in writing. I’m sometimes criticized for doing so because I’m a white man talking about work that is outside my own personal experience. I’m not defensive about those critiques. They’re valid. But I still attempt to explain why I do what I do because there are also more complicated conversations to be had, located under that surface, about power, responsibility, and representation.

My representation story is not about when I first saw or heard myself in pop culture. That can be a life-saving moment for those underrepresented, but I was everywhere, hard to miss. White men dominated when I was growing up, and still do. White men tacitly expect and demand anyone unlike them to erase their own differences, to identify with white male experience as the “norm.” My representation story, as someone who holds power and privilege in various ways, is about learning to not see myself.