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# Liberté, Égalité, and … Beyoncé
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/liberte-egalite-and-beyonce/
- Published: 2014-08-12T14:10:13.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:33:01.000Z
- Description: For the days when you don't feel a sense of brotherhood, there is Beyoncé.
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, Beyoncé, Graffiti, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

[![liberte-egalite-beyonce-640](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/08/liberte-egalite-beyonce-640.jpg)](https://twitter.com/alienated/status/477961953231372288?ref=hyperallergic.com)

For the days when you don’t feel a sense of brotherhood, there’s Beyoncé. This [graffiti piece](http://picsofwhatilike.tumblr.com/post/88794482639/liberte-egalite-beyonce-marais-paris?ref=hyperallergic.com) popped up on Rue des Hospitalières Saint-Gervais in Paris’s Marais neighborhood in the spring, and it’s now slowly [spreading across the web](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&ref=hyperallergic.com#q=egalite%20liberte%20beyonce).

I normally assume this kind of visual wordplay on the streets is normally designed to make you chuckle, but some people choose to look deeper, like this Redditor ([@mindfu](http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/284noa/libert%C3%A9%5F%C3%A9galit%C3%A9/ci7gyz3?ref=hyperallergic.com)):

> In our current media-drenched class-based world society, instead of fraternity (literally brotherhood and sisterhood) we have the pale simulation of virtual togetherness, through the shared experience of corporate media creations like Beyonce. \[sic\]

Or maybe it’s a wink at [Beyoncé’s deep faith in sisterhood](http://www.essence.com/2013/02/17/7-things-we-learned-beyonces-documentary/?ref=hyperallergic.com) … ahem, *not* brotherhood (which is what *fraternité* literally means in French).

For those who may not know, [*Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert%C3%A9,%5F%C3%A9galit%C3%A9,%5Ffraternit%C3%A9?ref=hyperallergic.com) \[Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood\], is the national motto of France and Haiti, both countries born out of revolution.