Feministing Jamz video of the week: The Body Electric by Hurray for the Riff Raff

In another case of a video which should have made the best of 2014 list but came out shortly after the list was published, we have “The Body Electric” by Hurray For The Riff Raff. The video and song, which tackle racist, gendered, and transmisogynist violence — while managing to be gorgeous at the same time — shook me to my core.

Featuring Katey Red — a New Orleans bounce music giant and a trans woman of color — at the center of a re-imagined Birth of Venus by Botticelli, the video “is a mediation of acceptance of violence and discrimination against women, people of color, and the LGBT community.”

The video premiered on NPR music and was named their political folk song of the year. Here’s what the Boricua, Bronx-born, NOLA-based songwriter Alynda Lee Segarra had to say about the song (lyrics here):

“I am mostly familiar with how the song has taught me there is a true connection between gendered violence and racist violence. There is a weaponization of the body happening right now in America. Our bodies are being turned against us. Black and brown bodies are being portrayed as inherently dangerous. A Black person’s size and stature are being used as reason for murder against them. This is ultimately a deranged fear of the power and capabilities of black people. It is the same evil idea that leads us to blame women for attacks by their abusers. Normalizing rape, domestic abuse and even murder of women of all races is an effort to take the humanity out of our female bodies. To objectify and to ridicule the female body is ultimately a symptom of fear of the power women hold.”

The video was crowdfunded, with all funds over the goal going to the Trayvon Martin Foundation and Third Wave Fund.

(H/T Latino Rebels)