Black American Culture Trumps MAGA

Kendrick Lamar's masterful Super Bowl Halftime Show reminds us that the resistance to white supremacy can be joyful, proud, loud, unapologetic, and super Black.

In America, politics runs downstream from culture.

Andrew Breitbart understood this phenomenon. Donald Trump and MAGA took his playbook, which is why the current state of America resembles a reality show from hell. After all, Trump is only President thanks to The Apprentice. His Secretary of Defense is a former Fox host and his Secretary of Transportation is a Real World alum. On election night, Dana White, the CEO of UFC, thanked YouTube stars Joe Rogan, the Nelk Boys, and Theo Von for helping push Trump over the top. Elon Muk, the richest man on Earth, bought a money-losing social media platform, Twitter, so he could promote and mainstream right-wing disinformation and conspiracies. The Trump Administration is a turnstile for Fox and right-wing media hosts.

Fox, UFC, WWE, country music, and Kid Rock have all bent the knee and lent their “talents” to help normalize Trump’s cruelty and whitewash his incompetence through their cultural platforms. However, Black and POC cultures, aside from Snoop Dogg and Nelly, have been resistant. Trump, and right-wing stars to a large extent, deeply covet acceptance, love, applause, and assimilation from the dominant mainstream liberal culture which they claim to loathe. This explains why Trump decided to purge the Kennedy Center board and appoint himself as Chairman over the weekend. He claimed the “shows were terrible” and a “disgrace” despite immediately acknowledging he had never seen any of them.

It’s about power and control. MAGA must see the rest of us bowing down, kneeling, obeying in advance, and accepting the master MAGA narrative without being uppity or problematic. It’s about the rest of us willingly being silent as they erase our books, our stories, and our narratives through the Trojan Horse of dismantling DEI and wokeness and replacing it with white Christian nationalism and delusional lies in service to Trump’s fickle ego and vindictiveness pettiness.

To appease Trump and not trigger MAGA, the NFL obeyed in advance and removed their “End Racism” lettering from the endzone. The game was between the Philadelphia Eagles and their Black quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has endured racist slights from some white Eagles fans and reporters, and the Kansas City Chiefs, who have a Black quarterback Patrick Mahomes and a white Christian nationalist kicker, Harrison Butker, has formed a conservative Christian PAC, endorsed and palled around with Senator Josh Hawley, and told women to embrace the role of “homemaker” in a controversial commencement speech. Surprisingly, Laura Ingraham and conservatives didn’t tell Butker to “shut up and dribble” and keep politics out of sports. That paternalistic finger-wanging is only reserved for Black athletes protesting racism and police violence, such as Lebron James and Colin Kaepernick, who was blackballed for quietly kneeling in protest during the national anthem.

Well, Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Kendrick Lamar had other ideas during the Super Bowl. He decided to put on the Blackest Super Bowl Halftime show in history in front of Donald Trump, America’s white supremacist President. Lamar warned white and racist America from the jump that “The revolution ‘bout to be televised. You picked the right time, but the wrong guy.”

It was a fantastic spectacle filled with deliberate, intentional choices. For example, the show opens with Samuel L. Jackson coming out as Uncle Sam and popping up throughout the performance to tell Lamar to follow the established rules and tame the Blackness. As Uncle Sam, with the top hat and all, he told Lamar during his performance, which featured all Black dancers wearing Red, White, and Blue, not to be “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto.” Lamar responded by singing “Humble” and “DNA” which celebrates unapologetic Blackness. He started rapping while standing on top of a Buick Regal as a stream of dozens of Black dancers kept coming out of the vehicle. (Lamar’s dad brought him home for the first time from the hospital in a Buick Regal.) He had the GOAT, Serene Williams, crip walking during “They Not Like Us.” Williams has endured and thrived throughout her entire illustrious career despite having her Black body and upbringing mocked, ridiculed, and shamed by white reporters.

Lamar, who is peak petty, even wore an “A minor” necklace throughout the show and decided to both body white supremacy and his rival Drake, even going so far as to basically call him a pedophile in front of 100 million people. The “A Minor” refrain was loudly echoed by the fans in attendance which was a call against Drake, whom Lamar loathes as being a fraudulent affront to Black culture, and Donald Trump, whose entire being is forged in racism, anti-Black hate and lies.

One of the most powerful images for me was seeing Black men holding each other and representing the colors and flag of the United States of America, a country that continues to loathe and fear the very same people who have built this country and still try to save it from itself. This metaphor can extend to immigrants, people of color, women, and LGBTQ+, all communities who are attacked by Trump and MAGA and given two choices: “go back to where they came from” or shut up and be silent.

Lamar’s performance reminded us that resistance can, and should, be joyful. Music is part and parcel of the movement against fascism and authoritarianism that has historically loathed cultural workers who imagine and share a different, better story for present and future generations. White supremacy thrives on keeping us distracted, exhausted, overwhelmed, and depressed. A bully gains power through our submission and fear. But a bully’s knees shake when he sees his victims smiling and singing despite having blood in their mouths. Every small act of joyful resistance weakens authoritarians and reveals their brittle fragility.

Lamar, like so many Black Americans and marginalized communities, kept his eye on the ball and played the long-term game. Everyone wants a Hail Mary pass and a quick solution towards victory. But, justice and equality have always been a game of inches. A few yards here and there. Sweat and struggle, but always moving forward. Lamar understood the assignment.

On today’s episode of Democracy-Ish, Danielle and I breakdown the Super Bowl performance and share our thoughts.