I love this take from Rich Eisen on the Super Bowl halftime show:
Let’s talk about Bad Bunny‘s halftime show. I was highly impressed at the jump and then got more and more impressed as I learned more and more about it. Because I didn’t see a lot of of what you saw on television. I ran to, umm, run an errand, if you will. I got back and the set-up had started and it was just as the first notes were being played. And I thought to myself “my god, that’s a lot of greenery on the field”. Like “what is happening?!”
And what is happening was. And I didn’t understand a word of it. And all I could see was the building was rocking. The many Spanish-speaking people around me were losing their minds. It was joyous, and then, you know, the ultimate message about “the only thing more powerful than hate is love” was awesome. And at the end, I just looked around, and everyone was smiling and dancing.
I understand the conversation around the Bad Bunny selection and how it is “un-American”, or is not welcome. I’ll just say this. I sat next to Stuart Scott for seven years when all he heard was from some people saying “what you are doing and how you were doing it is wrong” and “I don’t like it” and it’s because they sensed it wasn’t for them. That Stuart wasn’t talking to them, he was talking to an audience and saying things that was for that audience and you’re not part of that audience, and you felt it was exclusionary rather than taking a moment and listening to what he was saying and how he was saying it and who he was saying it about and getting into it and understanding it.
And I kind of got that vibe last night. He’s not being exclusionary. He’s trying to be inclusionary about what he’s about and what his upbringing is and how it is uniquely American as well. And all I’m gonna say is this, is that if you feel that your way of life and your value system and your upbringing is under attack and you want your way of life and your upbringing to rule the day, the only way for you to feel respect for your way of life and your upbringing is to have mutual respect for someone else’s. And have a curiosity about it, and an interest in it. To know that, collectively, we can all do it together. That’s the message I got last night sitting in that stadium and it’s unfortunate if somebody didn’t see it or sense it because they tuned it out before.
Kind of related is another take yesterday from Rachel Lindsay (Higher Learning podcast):
If you were hating on what you saw, you really are just in denial of your own racism against Puerto Rico, Latinos, and the entire culture.
Yep.
