In “moving beyond pain” the author, Bell Hooks, discusses the positives and negatives of Beyonce’s album lemonade. Hooks claim that the purpose of lemonade is to: “seduce, celebrate, and delight—to challenge the ongoing present day devaluation and dehumanization of the black female body”. This is clearly shown in the album when hooks says, “it shifts the gaze of white mainstream culture. It challenges us all to look anew, to radically revision how we see the black female body”. This proves Hooks’s claim about the purpose of lemonade and how it is meant to change the way black women are looked at and thought about. The author however talks about a song in which she was betrayed, “he was my man alright, but he done me wrong”, then goes on to say, “[her father] gives her a rifle warning her about men, she does not shoot her man. She dons a magnificently designed golden yellow gown, boldly struts through the street with baseball bat in hand, randomly smashing cars”. Although this shows empowerment in a way, I personally disagree with the method because it can be easily misinterpreted with the promotion of violence especially because stereo-typically people tend to associate blacks as being more violent. I feel like there could have been a much better way than fury and violence to depict empowerment. one point that confused me in the article is where she states, “No matter how hard women in relationships with patriarchal men work for change, forgive, and reconcile, men must do the work of inner and outer transformation if emotional violence against black females is to end”. I feel like Hooks is making it seem like only black women experience emotional violence in relationships when in reality many women not just black women and even in some cases men feel emotional violence in relationships.

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