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Beyoncé Faces Backlash for Buffalo Soldiers T-Shirt in Paris

Critics say the design romanticizes colonial violence by erasing the Buffalo Soldiers’ role in Indigenous dispossession.

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Overview

  • On June 19 in Paris, Beyoncé wore a T-shirt depicting the Buffalo Soldiers with an inscription branding Indigenous peoples and Mexican revolutionaries as enemies of peace and order.
  • Indigenous representatives, historians and fans have condemned the shirt for equating Native Americans and Mexican insurgents with criminals while overlooking the soldiers’ role in land dispossession.
  • Carl Carter of the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum says the institution has recently shifted its narrative to emphasize the regiment’s involvement in subjugating Indigenous communities.
  • University of Pittsburgh historian Alaina E. Roberts warns that the Buffalo Soldiers participated in actions that amounted to genocide against Native populations.
  • Beyoncé’s team has not responded to media inquiries, even as museums and scholars continue to reexamine and contextualize the soldiers’ complex legacy.