Louisiana resident Solange Knowles shed light on life in black America in a series of tweets posted Friday.
She began her Twitter rant by tweeting: “let me tell you about why black girls/women are so angry….”
Before attending a Kraftwerk concert at the Orpheum Theater in New Orleans with her husband, her 11-year-old son and his friend, Knowles tweeted she was “excited to dance and enjoy a band” she loves. That excitement, however, was short-lived.
Knowles said she was targeted by older white women just for dancing and enjoying herself. The women allegedly yelled at her to “sit down now,” and, when she didn’t comply, they yelled once more.
“We are at an ELECTRONIC and DANCE music concert and you are telling … not asking me … to sit down,” Knowles posted on Twitter. “In front of my child.”
Out of about 1,500 concertgoers, Knowles pointed out that only around 20 of them were black. After her confrontation with the women, they threw a lime at her back.
“Now the old me…” Knowles tweeted, hinting at what she would have done in the same situation years ago. “But in this moment, I’m just going to share my experience … So that maybe someone will understand, why many of us don’t feel safe in many white spaces.”
As a black citizen, she emphasizes she is just trying to have a good time, but her actions are quickly labeled as creating drama.
“We don’t bring the drama … fix yourself,” Knowles tweeted.
Knowles, along with many other Twitter users, believes she was treated unfairly because of her race. Her tweets and experience detail how quickly a situation can escalate.
For some people, this is just a standard case of rude people at a concert. But for many black Americans, because of these trying times, this can be seen as a threat to their safety.
Knowles tweeted that nobody goes to a Kraftwerk concert with their child to look for drama, but that’s how many people are interpreting the situation.
She ended the Twitter series by sharing some of the racist responses she had received. One user suggested that while black Americans don’t bring the drama, they do bring “lower test scores and a zoo-like environment before forcing the degradation of the curriculum.”
In response, another user retorted they should “try going to a rap concert if being around so many white people makes you uncomfortable.”
While reading the series, some Twitter users tried to place the blame not on issues with race relations, but on Knowles’ Southern residence.
“I see folks saying ‘Well u live in Louisiana’….but I say I live in a city w THE most incredible, beautiful black folk,” Knowles posted.