Erykah Badu sat down with MTV and explain her message for her controversial video
"I thought it was a move for women and men and children who feel they weren't good enough. This is just me, I'm good enough.' I felt it was important enough to do. More pros than cons. I know it was a shocking thing I did. I expected it to provoke dialogue, and it's an important statement to make. It's about freeing oneself of the layers and layers of things that we have learned as Americans in this country. At the point of becoming naked and individual and free, either you're assassinated spiritually or mentally by the group or worse. The words coming out of my head after I was figuratively and literally assassinated was 'groupthink.' Groupthink is a term coined by Irving Janis, 1972. It pretty much states what happens when a character or person is ostracized for thinking out of what the consensus is. He or she is pretty much thinking [more] with a heart than with loyalty. It's an important thing. It's art. It's performance art. Art is supposed to spark dialogue and ring an awakening of some sort." (MTV)
Have you ever been involved in a group opinion or decision and had a different opinion but decided to keep quiet? All of us have experienced 'groupthink' whether or not we know it. Examples can be seen with cliques in high school, team decisions made at work, and family decisions. We have all had to sacrifice what we thought in order to not cause conflict or be isolated from a group. Badu's tactics maybe controversial, however she does have a strong message for all of us.
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