They Not Like Us: The Annual Halftime Show Hissy Fit
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Well, there it is. Another Super Bowl, another halftime show, another round of people acting like America itself is circling the drain because a Black man had the audacity to take center stage and tell the truth.
This year’s villain? Kendrick Lamar.
Now, I’d love to tell you the outrage was about the music, but let’s not kid ourselves. It wasn’t about beats or lyrics or whatever made-up moral standard folks suddenly discovered between the first and second Bud Light (wait, are they drinking them again now that Shane Gillis is in the commercial?). No, it was about something much simpler. Something older than the sport itself.
It was about control. About who gets to stand in the bright lights and who is expected to stay in the shadows.
See, Kendrick got up there and did what great artists do: he took the biggest stage in America and told a story, his story, the story of people this country has spent a long, long time trying to pretend don’t exist. Or at least shouldn’t. He rapped about oppression, about injustice, about survival. And the same folks who’ll tell you how much they love free speech suddenly couldn’t handle it.
Some of them were mad that a Black man was on their TV at all. Some of them were mad that too many Black men were on their TV at once. And some of them, God help em all, were mad that Kendrick dared to call out actual pedophiles. “It’s not the right place or time! Children are watching!”
Yes, you heard that right. The same people who spent the past five years screaming that every Democrat, teacher, librarian, and Drag Queen Story Hour is secretly running an underground child-trafficking ring lost their minds when Kendrick Lamar stood on that stage and did something they’ve never actually done: called out real predators with power.
Pick a damn lane, yall. Either you hate pedophiles, or you just like saying you do.
And if that wasn’t enough, they had the nerve, the absolute gall, the “cajones” my dad would say (since it’s the only Mexican word he knows besides fajitas) to whine that there weren’t enough white people on stage.
Oh, Im sorry, I thought yall didnt care about inclusion? I thought DEI was ruining everything? I thought hiring quotas were the worst thing to ever happen to America? (Aside from the 69,79,89 cent menu leaving Taco Bell) Well, turns out, when they finally let the best performers get the job based on talent alone, Black people won, because lets be honest, black peoples are the best dancers. No, I’m not afraid of being canceled or called a racist for saying that. And if I do? I’ll die knowing I fought for the damn truth!
The fact that this was the moment yall suddenly started caring about fairness tells me everything I need to know.
Now look, I know what’s coming. Some Facebook uncle is gonna slide in here and say,”But what if there was an all-white halftime show? Wouldn’t y’all be mad?”
No, buddy. We’d call that every halftime show before 1995. (But actually, yeah, unless it was The Drive By Truckers I think I would be mad)
Here’s the thing,and I say this with love: you are not oppressed because the Super Bowl halftime show doesn’t cater specifically to you. Just like I’m not oppressed in a dairy free ice cream store. It is not discrimination just because, for one single night, you had to sit and watch someone else get their moment in the sun. For decades, entertainment in this country looked like a damn JCPenney catalog, and y’all didn’t have a word to say about it. (And btw I know this is coming out of no where but I gotta say it: Ed Sullivan fuckin sucked. So bad. All he had going for him was that he was white and had good posture I reckon.)
But now? Now that the biggest cultural moments in America don’t always star people who look like you? Now it’s “woke” gone too far. And btw, any conservative reading this who can define “woke”, I’ll pay off your Cybertruck and sew titties on myself.
Buddy, it ain‘t “woke”, it’s just reality. And you just don’t like it. And if I may borrow a phrase you loved to toss around during the first Trump administration: If you don’t like it, FUCKING LEAVE. Cause this is America, quite literally inspired by that piece of paper written all those hundreds of years ago that you all praise while it sits in your front pocket, worn out cover and pristine sheets.
So yeah, Kendrick Lamar got up there, did what he does, and set the internet on fire just by existing in a place some folks dont think he should be. And in return, a bunch of people who say they love freedom spent the next 24 hours proving they dont really want it for anybody but themselves.
America, man. What a place. Glory glory and all that, I reckon
-Corey Ryan Forrester
Also listen to his podcast with Trae Crowder: Puttin On Airs. Available wherever you get your podcasts or at WatchPOA.com
Thanks for telling them about themselves, Corey. #Facts! Only one note: They didn't just hate too many Black men being on their TV, they hated that there were too many Black women too. This is particularly relevant after this country couldn't be bothered to elect a qualified Black and South Asian woman and chose the white supremacist sociopath guy instead.
Always appreciate you, brother.👍🏾
To the privileged, equality feels like oppression. Some folks have had it so good for so long, when the good gets spread around, they are angry because they feel entitled to privilege.