One step forward, two steps back. After the U.S. Treasury Department unveiled Harriet Tubman as the new face of the $20 bill, people immediately complained because the department is also pushing Andrew Jackson to the back. They want the Treasury Department to be fair to a man who is responsible for one of the greatest human rights atrocities in American history.
Most incredibly, some are disappointed that Tubman does not wear a smile. So, not only do these people want Tubman to be pushed to a less-circulated bill like the $2 or even a whole new $25 bill, but they also want the first woman on U.S. paper currency in more than a century to also be the first person to smile.
Don’t worry. Beyoncé will explain. Beyoncé dropped her highly-anticipated but entirely unexpected new album, Lemonade on Saturday night. She embraces the strange with tribal face paint and burning rooms, is painfully honest about her husband’s infidelity and makes many bold political statements.
Beyoncé is well-known for maintaining her privacy and avoiding public statements. She will not be the pretty dancer any more. In one of the many instances that she quotes Warsan Shire’s poetry, she reads from “For women who are “difficult to love”:
“you tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do, love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.”
These lines acknowledge her very visual artistic maturation and her personal growth. She tried to make herself smaller and easier to love. As she grows, she becomes less afraid of being honest. Those that took issue with “FORMATION” will surely struggle with this latest release. Malcolm X can be heard saying, “The most disrespected woman in America is the black woman.” Kendrick Lamar, notorious for his political verses, collaborates on “FREEDOM.”
She demands that men “see her” and that she does not care if she looks “jealous or crazy” as she smashes several cars with a baseball bat and rolls over several more with a monster truck.
Women are still told to smile more and speak less.
“To ask why is to step into the laser grid of unspoken rules governing the arrangement of male and female faces — the gendered ways we police social performance,” Katy Waldman explains in her Slate piece.
She references several studies that demonstrate that women are expected to smile and that they smile more frequently than men in order to demonstrate their compliance and communicate “affable submission” (a technique used by primates). Women that do not smile cause social strain and are quickly judged as bitchy or “grumpy” (to quote one of the Tubman dissidents).
Every feminist movement since that of Rosie the Riveter has championed rage as an ally. Beyoncé allows her rage to fuel her, but her visual motifs feature both fire and water: She burns with anger, but drowns in her sorrow. She does not deny her sadness for fear of appearing weak. She sees her vulnerability as a demonstration of the fact that she has loved deeply. She asks, “Why are you so afraid of love?” She acknowledges that love can hurt and even kill her, (“Here lies the mother of my children, both living and dead”) but part of being strong is accepting that risk and letting love in.
So, the next time you think about asking someone to smile or look down at your $20 bill in 2020 and feel unnerved by Tubman’s unsmiling face, remember … Bey is watching.
Emily Shwake is a senior English major. She can be reached at eshwakedbk@gmail.com.
