Betty Davis, Respectability Politics, and the Question We Still Don’t Want to Ask

When the 1970s cracked open, Betty Davis stepped onto the scene like an earthquake—unapologetic, erotic, loud, and fully self-authored. She wrote, arranged, and produced her own songs; she fused funk, rock, blues, and metal; and she performed in lingerie, sequins, thigh-highs, and control. She wasn’t trying to be palatable. She was trying to be free.

And that freedom came at a price.

Fin Costello/Fin Costello / Redferns

How a Black woman became “too free” for the Civil-Rights Era

The official story of Betty Davis’s disappearance is usually told as a mystery: She was brilliant, then she vanished. But the record is clearer than people want to admit.

One of the most cited summaries comes from the San Francisco Chronicle, which reports that the NAACP aligned with conservative church groups to pressure radio stations to stop playing her music for “indecency.”

Her song If I’m in Luck, I Might Get Picked Up triggered one of the most visible clashes. The Detroit NAACP reportedly attempted to block radio play, arguing her sexual assertiveness was harmful to the public image of Black women during the civil-rights era.

Betty understood what was happening. In the They Say I’m Different documentary, she says plainly:

“They said I was too wild, too out there… but that was just me.”

(from They Say I’m Different, 2017)

“I wasn’t trying to be obscene. I was just being a woman.”

(documentary interview)

Industry insiders confirm the pressure. Carlos Santana famously described her impact:

“She was the first Madonna, but Madonna was much more acceptable.”

(interviewed in the Betty Davis documentary)

He didn’t mean talent—he meant politics.

Respectability politics and the NAACP

Respectability politics promised safety through performance: if Black people looked “proper,” behaved “modestly,” and represented the race with discipline, white institutions would grant us room to breathe.

In practice, it policed Black women hardest.

Hazlitt magazine captured this tension perfectly:

“We don’t need another Black woman in rock ’n’ roll. That’s how the industry treated her.”

(Hazlitt interview & profile)

And the Guardian obituary stated:

“Her sexual agency was too much for a US steeped in church conservatism and civil-rights respectability.”

Even Miles Davis, who adored her creativity, admitted the civil-rights generation couldn’t handle her:

“Betty was a free Black woman. That scared a lot of men.”

(Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography, 1989)

This wasn’t just sexism or prudishness. It was about the image of the race, about who got to “represent” Blackness. In a time of political vulnerability, anything that didn’t look “safe” was treated as dangerous.

A career clipped by politics—not talent

Betty’s albums didn’t fail. They got defunded:

• Radio play shrank.

• TV refused to book her.

• Her label stopped supporting her.

• Island Records shelved her fourth album.

As the Chronicle put it:

“Her refusal to tone down her sexuality and her sound contributed to the collapse of her career.”

She wasn’t “forgotten.” She was discouraged, censored, and boxed in.

The real question: Are we still doing this today?

When we examine the political policing of Betty Davis, the question isn’t just historical.

It’s contemporary.

• Who gets to be the “right kind” of Black woman?

• Who gets punished for deviating from the script?

• Who gets to be radical, sexual, angry, experimental, loud, or soft?

• Why do we still reward “acceptable” Blackness while punishing the rest?

We see echoes everywhere—from school boards regulating Black kids’ hair, to activists demanding “unity” over individuality, to industries that only uplift Black women who fit certain boxes, based on public perception of the community as a whole, celebrity status or usefulness.

Betty Davis asked for nothing but autonomy.

Her career answers a harder question:

What happens when a Black woman refuses to be curated for political comfort?

And today, we must ask ourselves:

Are we still curating each other? Are we still policing each other? Are we still deciding which Black women are worth protecting and which ones are too risky? What parts of ourselves can be loud, confrontational and off-beat, and what parts cannot?

Betty’s story is a warning:

When Black creativity threatens our respectability myths, we often choose the myth—not the woman.

When in Doubt...Betty

I was sitting at home, casually browsing Amazon Prime, when the algorithm did something right for once. It suggested a documentary that would change the entire trajectory of my creative career.

They Say I'm Different tells the story of Betty Davis — the funk mother, the rebel wife of Miles Davis, and rumored muse to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone. I’ve always been a fanatic for femme power, diva dynamics, and musical rebellion. Betty embodied all three.

Through rare photos, performance clips, and interviews, the documentary paints a portrait of a woman who was bigger than the legends around her — just too ahead of her time. Her screeching, metallic vocals. Her raw, sexual energy. Her funk-meets-punk-meets-soul sound. Betty was a threat to the industry and an affront to respectability politics — so much so that even the NAACP allegedly found her too radical for Black dignity.

But the mark she left? Unmistakable. She birthed a sound and a style that still fuels the fiercest performers today — even if most of them don’t know her name.

At Nicole Patrice & The Exes, we aim to bring Betty’s legacy back — not as a relic of sadness or erasure, but as a revival. A reclamation. A resurrection.

The world wasn’t ready for Betty then. They still aren’t now. But we’re coming. Ready or not.

I’m not gonna compromise myself for anybody. –Betty Davis