Miami police union president pledges to boycott Beyoncé concert

By William Hughes  |  February 19, 2016 | 11:02pm
Aux Features Music

In a situation that threatens to hearken back to the ultimately pointless Quentin Tarantino Black Lives Matter controversy of last fall—except with an actual black person as the target—the president of a Miami Fraternal Order Of Police lodge has vowed to boycott an upcoming concert by Beyoncé. The letter, put forth by Miami Lodge #20 president Javier Ortiz, stems from the performer’s recent, Black Panthers-inspired Super Bowl performance, as well as an “anti-police message” Ortiz felt he detected in her new video for “Formation.” (Ortiz’s formal letter fails to note whether he was also concerned that the song’s good-fucking-based endorsement of Red Lobster might add to America’s obesity epidemic, or contribute to overfishing.)

So far, no other police unions have joined Ortiz’s planned boycott of the April 26 show, presumably because even armed cops know not to fuck with the power of Beyoncé. (Or maybe they just think the idea of public servants withholding their protection—albeit, in an extracurricular, volunteer form like concert security—from those who speak out against police excesses is both totalitarian and deeply scary. It could go either way.) Not every Florida police department agrees with the sentiment, in any case; although some members of the Tampa Police Department have apparently joined a similar unofficial boycott organized by the local Policemen’s Benevolent Association, the Twitter account for the department ensured citizens that they’d be on hand to keep people safe (while also raising the equally terrifying prospect of a police force that communicates with the public entirely through hashtags and memes).

[via The New York Times]

 
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