海角大神

For a culture writer who has dived fearlessly into the tough issues of race, the idea seemed harmless. Wouldn鈥檛 it be fun to rate Beyonc茅鈥檚 10 best and 10 worst songs?

Little did Candace McDuffie know. Monitor readers will know Candace. She鈥檚 graced our pages many times, writing about聽music festivals for people of faith听补苍诲听remarkable books by Black authors. But when she wrote聽, something odd happened. Twitter

How dare she criticize Beyonc茅? Who did she think she was? The hate rolled in, topped by the oddest accusation of all: She must be anti-Black. It was a sobering moment. 鈥淚t was hard to swallow,鈥� she tells me. 鈥淎ll these stories that I鈥檇 done about race and Blackness and white supremacy, and it鈥檚 a piece about Beyonc茅 that goes viral.鈥�

Truth be told, writing about race had brought her much worse comments in the past. But it was a reminder of how too often America鈥檚 race conversation turns to using identity as a weapon 鈥� in this case, a narrow sense of Blackness that sought to punish an opinion outside the collective thinking.

For Candace, it鈥檚 all the more reason to keep writing the deeper stories that perhaps don鈥檛 go viral, but help America wrestle with the complexity of race. 鈥淚鈥檓 going to keep doing the work that I do,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 am a Black person in America, and I want to uphold my people.鈥澛�