Singer Solange Knowles attended a Kraftwerk concert in New Orleans on Friday with her husband Alan Ferguson, son Daniel Julez Smith Jr and his friend in tow.
She had taken her family to experience one of her favourite German electronic bands and it undoubtedly got them all dancing. Yet a group of four white women began to insist that Solange should, “sit down now” in a racist rant.
After refusing to stop dancing to her and her husband’s favourite song Machine, Solange felt something hit her back, which her son later confirmed was a half-eaten lime which the women had thrown at her.
After her husband calmly asked the women if they had thrown the rubbish at his wife, one of them replied, 'I just want to make it clear, I was not the one who yelled those horrible, nasty, things at you.' Suggesting that further racist comments had been made.
Hands shaking, Solange took to Twitter to demonstrate why black women don’t feel safe in ‘white spaces’. The singer explained in a series of tweets how they were just four out of 20 black people in the concert’s audience, out of a possible 1,500 people. And how, 'Nobody goes to Kraftwerk "looking for drama" but this is how you guys like to spin this'.
Solange then went on to pen a powerful essay depicting her past experiences with racism on her website. Within the piece, the singer addresses the ‘tone’ in which she is all too familiar with.
She tells of how the concert incident had reminded her of trying to access first class at the airport only to be told, “m’am, go into that other line over there”. Not to mention another time that her friend was mistaken for a porter as he was told, “BOY…. go on over there and hand me my bag”.
The 30 year-old went on to describe the tone as a ‘product of white supremacy’ which ‘simply says, ‘I do not feel you belong here’'.
And Solange undoubtedly gave the greatest response following the abuse as she wrote: ‘That the biggest payback you could have ever had was dancing right in front of them with my beautiful black son and husband, and dear friend Rasheed jamming the hell out to the rhythm our ancestors bless upon us saying, 'We belong. We belong. We belong. We built this.'’
You can read the powerful essay on her website.
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