Solange Knowles Describes Negative Experience At Concert

A family outing tied to giving her 11-year-old son and his friend a history lesson on hip-hop turned into a disappointing experience for singer Solange Knowles when she says a group of white women demanded she sit during a concert and then threw a lime at her.

Photo: John Davisson / Invision / AP

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Fairgrounds Racecourse, New Orleans, La.

Knowles, first on Twitter and later on her blog , described events at Friday’s Kraftwerk concert from her perspective.

The younger sister of singer Beyoncé said her family walked into the Orpheum Theater about 10 minutes late for the German electronic music group’s performance.

She said she hadn’t sat down yet because she was excited to dance to the group’s tune “The Hall of Mirrors,” which they were performing and she had just played in the car on the way to the concert. The women behind her told her to sit and, when she didn’t, she said they threw the fruit at her back.

Knowles tweeted: “This is why many black people are uncomfortable being in predominantly white spaces.”

Knowles wrote of how she objected to the women’s tone used in their demand that they sit.

“Sit down now, you need to sit down right now,” Knowles recalled hearing.

Knowles said the tone was similar to one “that says to your friend, ‘BOY … go on over there and hand me my bag’ at the airport, assuming he’s a porter.”

“You don’t feel that most of the people in these incidents do not like black people, but simply are a product of their white supremacy and are exercising it on you without caution, care, or thought. Many times the tone just simply says, ‘I do not feel you belong here.’”