Beyonce's Masterful PR Performance

I like Beyonce. But hopefully, it's not a surprise to anybody who knows me that I don't necessarily listen to her songs.

I know. Shocking.

But I did hear about the controversy where she had to remove what is now considered to be a slur from one of her more popular and newer songs. If you look at the phrase, it is a phrase that, quite frankly, a lot of us used when we were kids some 45 years ago. And like a lot of things in life, our better-trained ears now say that's something that is certainly an afront to people with certain disabilities.

To Beyonce's credit, once she started getting the criticism, she owned it. She apologized for it. She expressed the fact that it wasn't her intention to discriminate against anybody and certainly disparage any particular individual or groups, and she removed it from her song.

This is a perfect example about what to do in a crisis situation when in an inadvertent manner you may have caused somebody harm. Don't debate about whether it's the right thing to do or whether somebody's being overly sensitive. If a group of your constituents is telling you they don't like it. I think the adage of “the customer is always right” is a pretty good one.

Kudos to Beyonce and maybe this will get me to listen to one of her songs or two. ;)