Kelly Rowland’s Cannes slight is typical to Black women in entertainment | Tayo Bero

Kelly Rowland is holding her own after she was filmed calling out a security guard who disrespected her as she posed for photos at the Cannes film festival earlier this week.

In the video, you can see the security guard rush the Grammy-winning singer off the steps, blocking photographers’ view of Rowland while speaking to her in a way to which Rowland clearly took objection. The singer initially appears to engage with the security guard calmly, placing a hand on the security guard’s arm after she apologized for stepping on Rowland’s dress. A verbal back-and-forth ensues and then, it appears, Rowland had enough.

“The woman knows what happened, I know what happened,” the actor and singer recalled, looking exhausted and emotional, during an interview at the AmfAR Cannes Gala two days later. “I have a boundary and I stand by those boundaries and that is it.”

She added: “There were other women who attended that carpet who did not quite look like me and they didn’t get scolded or pushed off or told to get off and I stood my ground.”

Although she didn’t confirm what words were exchanged, the consensus from internet sleuths and lip readers is that she told the security guard something to the effect of: “Don’t talk to me like that. You are not my mother. You will not speak to me like that.”

Everyone from fans to Rowland’s personal friends were outraged by what seems to have been a racially motivated slight, including Yvette Noel-Schure, a legendary publicist whom Rowland considers to be like family. Noel-Schure posted an Instagram story comparing the way Rowland was treated with how white model Heidi Klum was allowed to pose freely on the famous steps leading up to the Palais des Festivals.

There’s a lot happening here. On one level, it clearly reflects the disrespect that Black women continue to face in the entertainment industry, regardless of how hard they work or how accomplished they are. And the film festival itself has an abysmal history when it comes to this – so much so that in 2018, 16 Black female actors staged a protest on the Cannes red carpet, condemning the lack of diversity and inclusion in the French film industry and at the festival itself. In 2022, the film critic Valerie Complex also wrote about her experiences attending the festival for work, detailing the racism that she and other Black critics face while working at the prestigious event.

But beyond the glaring disregard, this incident has also made me think about what kind of anger is permissible for Black women, especially in spaces where the idea of “decorum” can be so easily weaponized against them.

Rowland is a dark-skinned Black woman in a world that is as obsessed with maintaining proximity to whiteness as it is invested in demonizing Black women who speak up for themselves, so there’s no doubt she’s endured anti-Blackness and faced countless situations where she had to stay her anger and hold her tongue so she didn’t appear aggressive. You can see it in the way her demeanor shifts throughout this encounter. She’s clearly uncomfortable, but first tries to de-escalate the tense situation, signalling with her body language that she isn’t upset.

And while we may never know exactly what was said that caused her to ultimately lose her cool, it really doesn’t matter. The expectation that Black women be gracious and deferential in the face of flagrant hostility is one of the most dehumanizing aspects of Black public life, and I’m glad to see her reject this completely unacceptable idea and choose her own integrity.

To be a Black woman, especially one who doesn’t fit stereotypical western ideals of womanhood, is to endure a never-ending series of indignities simply for trying to exist. And sadly, Black women don’t often get the chance to openly and unapologetically demand the respect they deserve – which is why it’s so meaningful to see people like Rowland take a public stand in defense of their humanity.