Black Lives Matter: Nina Simone, Beyoncé and The Black Panthers Intersect
/
Black Lives Matter: Nina Simone, Beyoncé and The Black Panthers Intersect
Talking about Nina Simone in her 2013 self-produced HBO documentary 'Life Is But A Dream', Beyoncé drew contrast between her public life and the fact that Simone's lived with her demons out of the public space.
“People are brainwashed… When Nina Simone put out music, you loved her voice. That’s what she wanted you to love,” Beyoncé reminds us, while lamenting the ridiculous things people write about her. “You didn’t get brainwashed by her day-to-day life. That’s not your business. It shouldn’t influence the way you listen to the voice and the art, but it does.” Remember the rumor that she used a surrogate mother to carry her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter? Bey called it “stupid.” She explained: “To think that I would be that vain. I respect mothers and women so much. To be able to experience bringing a child into this world, if you’re lucky and fortunate enough to experience that, I would never ever take that for granted.”
It was last week that music lovers were able to draw a new contrast between Beyoncé and Nina Simone, when the superstar took to the stage at Superbowl halftime to perform 'Formation'. I'm sparing the visuals and let you read the lyrics in Bey's sing-along.
As Female Genital Cutting Explodes, Tostan's Molly Melching Reports Progress
/
We celebrate every step forward taken in the drive to end the genital mutilitation of women worldwide. But a new report from the UN says that the estimates of the total women affected has been very underestimated.
A new survey from Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, plus population growth in other countries where the practice continues, often despite being outlawed—led to the revision.
It's believed that about half of all Indonesian females under the age of twelve have undergone female genital mutilation or cutting, as it’s formally known, even though the practice was outlawed in 2006."The new numbers bump up the worldwide total to at least two hundred million women and girls, alive today, who have undergone genital mutilation—some just a few weeks after birth, the vast majority before the age of ten."
