Lana Del Rey’s White Fragility Contextualized within the United States’ Anti-Blackness

Lana Del Rey, a popular icon in the music industry, caused disconcert in her May 21st Instagram post. The post detailed her frustration that fellow artists are receiving recognition she feels entitled to. This young white artist, whose music is often characterized as “dream pop” or “baroque pop”, has been a prominent figure in the music scene for over 8 years and is known as an icon of glamour and luxury, both enticing and exciting to her listeners. In the music video for her debut single “Born to Die”, Lana Del Rey opens and ends the video with her naked torso pressed against her male interest with an American flag waving behind her as a backdrop.

Her bold red lips, blue flower crown, white slip dress, and tight 1950s style curls map her as a patriotic symbol of American “glory” as she wanders through a church wrapped in Christian iconography. Her lyrics tend to detail submissive or passive roles in relationships which lead to heartbreak and distress. Her lyrics convey women’s fragility which her young, prominently female, fanbase romanticizes. In the same music video, her male interest roughly grabs her face when kissing and rarely embraces her gently. His control over her physical body and her lack of response idealizes submissive passivity in moments of danger. Before ending the music video with her body pressed against her lover’s, the preceding scene depicts her as a crucified Jesus, her bloodied body hanging limp from her lover’s arms. The explicit messaging of sacrificing individual autonomy is incredibly dangerous for young girls and feeds into patriarchal structures meant to control women and their bodies. However, I digress.

In the May 21st post, Lana Del Rey expresses frustration for “being crucified [f]or… glamorizing abuse.” Her belief that feminism excludes women like her – women who “are slated mercilessly for being their authentic, delicate selves” – causes a misconstrued understanding that women “get their own stories and voices taken away from them by stronger women or by men who hate women.” Name-dropping artists like Kehlani, Doja Cat, Beyoncé, and Nicki Minaj – young Black women who have achieved great success in the industry – to illustrate her qualm reflects a lack of cultural awareness. In this instance, Lana Del Rey’s use of her platform is questionable and leads me to posit two larger questions. First, why must her accusation center around Black women? Second, why is whiteness continually a nexus for little to no accountability of privilege and used as an excuse for disengagement from social justice and political issues?

While these two questions, especially the latter, are quite broad, I want to, at minimum, scratch the surface of why white people must use their privilege to support people of color—specifically Black people—who are systemically oppressed. Lana Del Rey’s public misstep illuminates a rejection of whiteness as the root problem of social inequities and upon the immense backlash she faced, she took to her Instagram again to post in the comments of the original post. She wrote, “When I said people who look like me – I meant the people who don’t look strong or necessarily smart… it’s about advocating for a more delicate personality.” She continued on to assert in a post a few days later, “Making [the initial post] about race says so much more about you than it does about me.” Her original statement’s emphasis of fragility, its exclusion from feminism, and her ensuing career difficulties for including fragility in her music detract from her the subtext: being white grants easier access to recognition and accolades. Therefore, watching young Black women not only succeed, but excel, in the industry which she has fought to find a place in, became a sore spot that manifested feelings of rejection and unworthiness. Lana Del Rey’s defensive position clearly displays her white fragility. This blatant lack of an apology singles out and targets Black women, placing blame on undeserving bodies.

Her denial of privilege and attempt to market her original statement as a discussion of feminism and fragility seems counterintuitive. Yes, there should be a place in feminism for fragility, but I strongly believe that passivity is not an appropriate way to spread such a message – especially to a young following who are highly impressionable. Furthermore, feminism encompasses more than just women’s issues. Feminism is intersectional. The basis of intersectionality requires the active recognition of bodies unlike your own. Feminism is just as much about racism, classism, and any other social inequality as it is about the fight for women’s rights. Racism cannot be ignored and claimed as a separate issue. There is a clear double standard: by naming only Black female artists who address similar topics in their own work, Lana Del Rey exposes her own biases. Please understand that my qualm with her posts does not center around her biases. It does, however, have everything to do with her denial of them. Our cultural upbringing informs how we see the world and white bodies are given a head start in life just by being white. It is imperative that white people critically examine their privilege and understand how their upbringing informs detrimental opinions and biases that uphold racism. Recognizing and owning up to ingrained prejudices as well as striving to do better is not shameful. It shows learning.

It shows growth.

When examined in conjunction with the worldwide protests over George Floyd’s murder, Lana Del Rey’s Instagram post is insignificant. Systemic political structures oppress Black bodies and white people are rarely held accountable. Lana Del Rey, for example, when held accountable for her racism, did not accept her audience’s challenge to recognize her inherent privilege and biases. Instead, she chose to twist the conversation and disengage from a more meaningful discussion.

It is no longer, nor was it ever, an option to disengage from conversations about anti-Blackness. A collective public commitment to anti-racism must begin in order to dismantle racist structures which plague our nation. Our nation’s systems are not broken; they were intentionally created to benefit white Americans. The United States was founded on colonialism and thrives on social hierarchies of power. Black bodies, and other bodies of color, have always been harmed because of this. To detail the United States history of anti-Blackness would be exhaustive and never-ending. We, as young people (especially white people), as the latest generation, and as advocates for change, must fight for Black lives. Letting Lana Del Rey’s racism go unchecked denies recognition of Black creative work and in turn devalues Black life and labor as well. From this country’s foundation on Black enslavement to the present, and constant, unjust murders of people like George Floyd, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor and so many more, the United States has proven it protects only white bodies.

The perpetual violent acts of denied humanity illustrate the true nature of the United States: a white supremacist nation which favors, and relies upon, structural racism in order to maintain positions of white power. It is important, now more than ever, that white people hold themselves accountable to enabling such systems of oppression which disregard the value of human life and work. White people must recognize that silence sides with the oppressor, that action must happen, and that more voices must be heard. As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss; however, choosing ignorance is no longer an option, nor was it ever really an option in the first place.