Beyonce's Love and Respect for the Latin Culture

Beyonce is jealous because she was not born a Latina is what the headline read. After knee jerk reaction to the headline many people realized after reading the article that Beyonce Knowles is not negating her African American culture, rather she is simply voicing her love and respectfor the Latin culture.

After working with Shakira on a musical project Beyonce Knowles openly expressed her love for the Latin culture, but of course the headlines are written to get a reaction, which we all understand. It is after all about numbers, ratings, and readership. Right.

In essence in making the statement that she was jealous because she is not Latina, Beyonce Knowles was embracing the Latin culture. After immersing herself into the Latin Culture as a result of her project with Shakira, she had a wonderful opportunity to learn, and feel, and live the vibrancy of a beautiful culture, as well as having much love and respect for the Latin culture.

Whether or not Beyonce Knowles is jealous because she was not born a Latina is neither here not there and is very misdemeanor in lieu of the incredible collaboration of "Beautiful Liar" performed both Beyonce and Shakira, both incredible songstresses, and incredibly talented women both representing not only their perspective races, but successful, strong, beautiful, and independent women. But let's face it headlines generate traffic and readers, and that particular headline definitely did. In this situation Beyonce was expressing her love and respect for the Latin culture, the passion, and the vibrancy through which the culture lives.

Certainly at first sight most readers would ask what exactly is it that Beyonce has to be jealous of as far as being African American versus Latina? Her statement is more of a complement to the Latina culture, style, talent, art, and passion particularly after the Beautiful Liar collaboration with Shakira. I respect her for stepping up to the plate to complement not only the stylistics of Shakira, but her love and respect for the culture.

If you haven't seen or heard the collaboration of Beautiful Liar performed by Beyonce and Shakira you are missing out on an incredible performance by two of the most talented and beautiful song birds of our time. The Beautiful Liar collaboration by Beyonce and Shakira is likely to be one of the most prolific collaborations ever, particularly with the talent involved.

I doubt it matters the headline that stated "Beyonce is jealous because she was not born a Latina" will hurt her popularity or her record sales. The fact that Beyonce holds love and respect for the Latin culture, attest to her being grounded in who she is as a performer, and being able to recognize the beauty of others talent and culture such as was demonstrated in the Beautiful Liar collaboration.

Hopefully the African American community won't take the headline literally. Upon first reading the headline "Beyonce is jealous because she was not born a Latina", once could misinterpret the intent. The truth is, with her success Beyonce Knowles has remained level headed and actually quite low key in terms of personality. Take it for what it is - a complement and an expression of appreciation of being embraced by the Latin community. When you put two talents together like Beyonce and Shakira, what could you expect other than respect for each other's talents, culture, and individuality.