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 based on a Federal Communications Fee response to a Freedom of Info Act (FOIA) request from WIRED, the one greatest supply of anger was not in regards to the efficiency itself. It was that there have been not sufficient white individuals on stage.
“I believe that it’s racist that there aren’t any white individuals on this occasion,” one complainant wrote. One other from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, added: “There’s one thing mistaken when you’ll be able to’t even put white individuals on with expertise.”
In response to WIRED’s FOIA request, the FCC printed 125 complaints despatched to the company from among the greater than 133 million individuals watching. Some complained in regards to the “vulgar” and “obscene” language makes use of, others targeted on their incapability 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 just some days after he gained 5 Grammys for the Drake diss observe “Not Like Us.”
However dozens of complainants had been open of their beliefs that that includes the all-Black ensemble at halftime was racist towards white individuals, in a weird twist on the broader tradition battle over variety, equality, and inclusion (DEI).
For years, right-wing politicians and personalities have been loudly blaming DEI insurance policies for all the pieces 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 individuals ought to have been beneficiaries of extra variety.
“No variety (white, Latin, Native American, and so on.) 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 individuals 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 individuals 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 mentioned was the purpose of the present, which was to focus on 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 gave the impression to be an excessive amount of for some individuals. “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 fairly than an emblem of navy propaganda. “Racist and anti-white NFL present,” one other offended viewer wrote. “Samuel Jackson as Uncle Sam mocked white individuals.”
Others tried to thinly masks their racist feedback through the use of 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 individuals of coloration, whereas on the identical time, the individuals offended by it see themselves as being victims of a scarcity of variety.
