Mass Exodus and Cultural Influences.

Reading chapter 5 of the "New Urban Sociology," I found it really interesting how they talked about the rise of the metropolis, which occurred from 1920 to 1960. During this time period, cities started to develop more horizontally rather than vertically. This means that cities were less concerned about building taller buildings and more concerned expanding the city's limits. This led to what the book calls "the US urban system consisted of a select group of large cities with populations ranging from several hundred thousand to over 7 Million. This pattern represents balanced urbanization that is characteristic of the older industrialized countries such as England." (124). One of the biggest reasons that balanced urbanization took place was because of the changes in demographic differentiation. The book talks about how the change in the complexion of metropolitan demographics between 1930 and 1960. There was a mass exodus of black people from the south to the north in search of a better life. Millions of black people migrated from southern plantation states to northern and western states. The books states that blacks moved because they were “attracted by the possibility of jobs in the newly booming military industries.” This part of the book reminded me of the Black Panther Party and how they were formed around that time period. There were actually founded in 1966, 6 years after the period was over. However, the reasons why the Black Panther Party was founded were happening during the time period of the rise of the metropolis. This past weekend I watched the Super bowl and I got to see the Half-time show which featured Coldplay, Bruno mars, but the night was won by Beyoncé (whose family is from the south, her father from Alabama and her mother from Lousiana). Beyoncé came out during the half-time show flanked by a host of young dancers and everyone was dressed in all black, leather outfits. They did a dance routine and paid tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement and the Black Panther Party movement. She also performed her new song that she had released the day before called “Formation,” in which she states “You mix that Negro with that Creole the make a Texas Bama, I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros, I like my Negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.” In my personal opinion, the half-time performance by all of the performers was amazing and had positive vibes throughout the show despite some microphone issues during the Bruno Mars segment. However, after the show there apparently was a lot of controversy surrounding the show, Beyoncé’s part in particular. Almost immediately after the half-time show, it seemed, memes about Beyoncé’s performance started popping up. People took to Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites to provide their opinion on the show. A lot of people had positive opinions about the show, like I had, but there were a great deal of people who believed that Beyoncé’s wardrobe choice and song choice was too controversial for something so popular show like the Super bowl half time show. Then the ridiculousness started. People started calling Beyonce a racist for paying tribute to the Black Panther Party. The overlying justification seemed to be that if it had been a white group who had come out and performed in the white sheets and hoodies, there would be an uproar and the band would immediately be labeled racist. To compare the Black Panther Party to the Klu Klux Klan seems utterly ridiculous to me. The History and mission for the two groups are very different. One the one hand you have the Black Panther Party, was founded as a result of the huge black immigration that lead a lot of black people to California which led to the urbanization of the cities there, such as Oakland, Los Angeles and Watts. The “urban ghettos,” that became home to many blacks were densely populated and became epicenters of racism and discrimination. In order to fight against these injustices Huey P Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Party in 1966 in order to protect black people from racial discrimination in the form of police brutality specifically. If you take a look at the history of the Klu Klux Klan you can see that it started as early as 1867 by white southerners who had lost the civil war and still believed that blacks should be slaves. The Klu Klux Klan is a white supremacist group that has been labeled a hate group and has been responsible for killing thousands of minorities, whom they believe are inferior to the white race, in the United States. As you can see the Black Panther Party was a group that fought for equality in the country and the Klu Klux Klan is a hate group whose aim is to see white people reign supreme over every other non-white race in this country, making the comparisons between the two utterly ridiculous. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3445116/Queen-cynicism-No-stunt-s-shameless-Beyonce-accused-trying-look-white-week-posed-heroine-black-power.html

http://www.thenation.com/article/october-15-1966-the-black-panther-party-is-founded/