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 certain to attract some complaints.
However in line with a Federal Communications Fee response to a Freedom of Info Act (FOIA) request from WIRED, the only largest supply of anger was not in regards to 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 fallacious 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 in regards to the “vulgar” and “obscene” language makes use of, others centered on their incapacity to know “this rap crap,” and a few requested why Madonna or Eminem weren’t performing. Regardless of its detractors, Lamar’s efficiency was broadly thought of a cultural feat, coming just some days after he received 5 Grammys for the Drake diss monitor “Not Like Us.”
However dozens of complainants had been open of their beliefs that that includes the all-Black ensemble at halftime was racist in opposition to white folks, in a weird twist on the broader tradition conflict over range, equality, and inclusion (DEI).
For years, right-wing politicians and personalities have been loudly blaming DEI insurance policies for every little thing 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 number of the preliminary on-line backlash to Lamar’s February efficiency accused the whole 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 obtained their highlight,” one viewer from Clovis, California, wrote to the FCC. One other complainant alleges the shortage of white folks was one way or the other 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 reveals. “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 battle 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 seemed to be an excessive amount of for some folks. “Why was Uncle Sam Black when Uncle Sam is white,” a viewer from Daytona Seashore, Florida, complained whereas showing to counsel that Uncle Sam was an precise historic character moderately than an emblem of navy propaganda. “Racist and anti-white NFL present,” one other offended 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 in opposition to folks of colour, whereas on the similar time, the folks offended by it see themselves as being victims of an absence of range.
