Because the most-watched halftime present of all time—one which solely featured Black performers—Kendrick Lamar’s historic efficiency throughout Tremendous Bowl LIX was sure to attract some complaints.
However in keeping with a Federal Communications Fee response to a Freedom of Data Act (FOIA) request from WIRED, the one greatest supply of anger was not concerning the efficiency itself. It was that there have been not sufficient white folks on stage.
“I feel that it’s racist that there aren’t any white folks on this occasion,” one complainant wrote. One other from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, added: “There’s one thing flawed when you’ll be able to’t even put white folks on with expertise.”
In response to WIRED’s FOIA request, the FCC revealed 125 complaints despatched to the company from a few of the greater than 133 million folks watching. Some complained concerning the “vulgar” and “obscene” language makes use of, others targeted on their incapacity to grasp “this rap crap,” and a few requested why Madonna or Eminem weren’t performing. Regardless of its detractors, Lamar’s efficiency was broadly thought-about a cultural feat, coming only a few days after he gained 5 Grammys for the Drake diss observe “Not Like Us.”
However dozens of complainants have been open of their beliefs that that includes the all-Black ensemble at halftime was racist towards white folks, in a weird twist on the broader tradition battle over range, equality, and inclusion (DEI).
For years, right-wing politicians and personalities have been loudly blaming DEI insurance policies for all the things from the tried assassination of Donald Trump to doorways falling off planes and bridges collapsing. Throughout his 2024 election marketing campaign, Trump claimed “there’s a particular anti-white feeling on this nation.” His administration has since cracked down closely on DEI insurance policies at each private and non-private establishments.
A few of the preliminary on-line backlash to Lamar’s February efficiency accused the complete present of being a type of DEI. However the FCC complaints counsel that some Tremendous Bowl viewers really feel white folks ought to have been beneficiaries of extra range.
“No range (white, Latin, Native American, and so forth.) but it surely appears the black neighborhood acquired their highlight,” one viewer from Clovis, California, wrote to the FCC. One other complainant alleges the dearth of white folks was by some means a throwback to a earlier period, as if there was one other interval in historical past when solely Black folks carried out at Tremendous Bowl halftime exhibits. “The absence of illustration from different races takes us again in time,” a complainant from Monee, Illinois, wrote.
Many complainants utterly missed what critics stated was the purpose of the present, which was to spotlight the wrestle of Black artists to attain correct illustration whereas seeing their artwork, expertise, and tradition appropriated by others.
A part of Lamar’s message was delivered by actor Samuel L. Jackson, who performed the character of Uncle Sam, however this gave the impression to be an excessive amount of for some folks. “Why was Uncle Sam Black when Uncle Sam is white,” a viewer from Daytona Seaside, Florida, complained whereas showing to counsel that Uncle Sam was an precise historic character moderately than a logo of navy propaganda. “Racist and anti-white NFL present,” one other indignant viewer wrote. “Samuel Jackson as Uncle Sam mocked white folks.”
Others tried to thinly masks their racist feedback by utilizing canine whistles, describing the present as “very ghetto” and “low life trash.”
The controversy over Lamar’s efficiency highlights the hypocrisy across the DEI backlash; specialists say the time period has come to function a modern-day slur wielded towards folks of shade, whereas on the identical time, the folks offended by it see themselves as being victims of an absence of range.
