Brittany Packnett Instagram – I think I love @beyonce so much because we grew up together. In the proverbial way, of course—but also in the way that Black girls who experience metamorphosis parallel to one another know each other’s story without knowing each other. I’m who Church Girl was written for. If you skip that song, it’s cause you ain’t in this life! I’m a double PK. I wasn’t older than 10 when the spotlight already felt hot in my world-which felt massive to a child learning who she is under the scrutiny of the saints. I grew up a Church Girl thinking DC’s “Nasty Girl” made perfect sense, hiding from the body God gave me and rarely finding the freedom that felt elusive. Everything was twice as good for half as much in white spaces, and perfection is a virtue in the Black ones. It was be brilliant, but don’t be too bold. It was confusion between haughtiness and confidence and just choosing neither since humility was next to holiness. And without knowing all the Church Girls in the world, she knew that she had friends in us who moved mountains and cried fountains. She knew the oceans of tears we cried because she cried them herself. And she understood well that being who God made you to be and not who man demands you be is how to be placed at the Center of His Will, like our icon @officialtwinkieclark wrote in that sample. In the show, during Church Girl, Bey turns her virginal, papal white coat into one of many colors-which has Biblical meaning and personal meaning for the women, the queer folks-the cast aside by the holy institutions who love God and know God loves us: we don’t have to perform pure for you because God already made us so. If I’m an alien superstar (which coincidentally are the risers on which we sat 👽 🎫🙏🏾) then that means when I’m myself, I’m closer to God. Shout out to some of the people that I love in these flicks who understand this life (@yvettenoelschure 💃🏾, @stevie_elem 🌹, @jovianzayne 🫶🏾), @cheyennekimora for this 🔥durag, and to my man my man my man @kidnoble who I think has had a pretty good start to his birthday 🫶🏾🐝. Here’s to our collective liberation. Here’s to the R E N A I S S A N C E. x✌🏾