This Is What “Becky With The Good Hair” Actually Means

After Beyoncé's Lemonade album came out, everybody had something to say about one particular character from the song "Sorry": "Becky with the good hair." The whole Internet was trying to figure out whether Jay Z was cheating with "Becky" and who she actually was. Iggy Azalea complained that the term was racist toward white women, leading many to remind her that reverse racism is not a thing. But according to Diana Gordon, the songwriter behind the song, we've been reading way too deeply into it. Becky isn't an actual person in Beyoncé's life. "I laughed, like this is so silly," she told Entertainment Weekly. "Where are we living? I was like, 'What day in age from that lyric do you get all of this information?' Is it really telling you all that much, accusing people?" The lyric did mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, even if unintentionally. The notion of "good hair" brought awareness to racist beauty standards, and the slang term "Becky" started a discussion about the type of person it describes — a clueless white woman unaware of her privilege. Gordon makes all the attention the lyric got sound like an accident. But Beyoncé knows what she's doing, and all the speculation about Becky certainly didn't hurt the album's popularity. Becky may not be a specific person, but she is a powerful symbol who has started more conversations than any one individual could.