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August 14, 2012
BEYONCE RESPONDS TO HARRY BELAFONTE WITH “ABBREVIATED LIST” OF “UNSELFISH WORK”
Madame Noire
by Brande Victorian
A lot of you were feeling Harry Belafonte’s remark last week that Beyonce and Jay-Z have turned their back on social responsibility. Though many of you argued that Jayonce don’t have any obligation to give back to the community, most agreed that social activists they are not.
One person who obviously doesn’t agree with this claim is Beyonce herself—or her people. Today Bey’s rep sent an email to the Wall Street Journal, which was said to be “An abbreviated list of the unselfish work Beyoncé has done and continues to do.” According to WSJ:
The list included co-founding The Survivor Foundation “a multi-purpose community outreach facility in downtown Houston”; donating “100K in 2008 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund to aid Texas victims of Hurricane Ike”; performing in “MTV’s Hope For Haiti Now! Benefit in addition to making a generous monetary donation,” among many other charitable activities.
Though those efforts are certainly worthy causes, I don’t get the feeling that this was the type of social responsibility Mr. Belafonte was speaking of. As a man who has taken a stand against racism, sexism, and war, I imagine his reaction might be that anyone can throw money at an issue, the question is what do you stand for?
NoLandGrab: Presumably Mrs. Z didn't include this performance among her charitable acts.
Posted by eric at August 14, 2012 10:42 AM