In so many ways, the National Football League (NFL) is one of the most racist American institutions. The players are predominantly Black, but the head coaches are almost all white. And the owners—well, you know the answer to that one. Ask Colin Kaepernick if you have any questions. He has all the receipts.
So when conservative bobbleheads such as Rep. Lauren Boebert and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spew their venom about the divisiveness and “wokeness” of the Black performers at Super Bowl LVII Sunday night, forgive me if I throw up just a little in my mouth at the hypocrisy.
The pre-game performance of the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by Abbott Elementary star and Emmy Award winner Sheryl Lee Ralph seemed to push our congressional Karens over the top. Although followed by Grammy Award-winning Babyface’s “America the Beautiful” and then Rihanna in all her resplendent beauty, they must have been screaming into their AR-15s—not to mention watching two Black quarterbacks on the field.
As USA Today’s Mike Freeman wrote, “This wasn’t the Super Bowl. This was Wakanda.”
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“America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM,” tweeted Boebert recklessly, using her caps button without reason. “Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness.”
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” became the unofficial Black national anthem when it was adopted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1917. It was written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900 and first performed as a song in Jacksonville, Florida, by 500 schoolchildren in honor of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The song became a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.
Greene tweeted, “Chris Stapleton just sang the most beautiful national anthem at the Super Bowl. But we could have gone without the rest of the wokeness.”
If only the congresswoman from Georgia knew that Stapleton has been vocal in his support of the allegedly “woke” ideal of Black Lives Mattering.
"Do I think Black lives matter? Absolutely ... I don't know how you could think they don't," Stapleton said during an interview on CBS This Morning in 2020. “There's a very broad awakening that I guess has come about, and it's time for me to listen. And it's time for other folks to listen."
Of course, Ralph took it all in stride, announcing on Twitter Sunday morning, “It is no coincidence that I will be singing the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing at the Super Bowl on the same date it was first publicly performed 123 years ago (February 12, 1900). Happy Black History Month!“
Lastly, President Donald Trump wasted no time criticizing another yet Black woman. That’s just his jam. This time, Trump decided to go after Rihanna, calling her performance the “worst in halftime show in Super Bowl history.”
Trump’s obviously still salty after the Grammy-winning pop star spray painted “Fuck Donald Trump” at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas.
And if all this didn’t piss off the white conservatives, American Sign Language interpreter Justina Miles, the first Black woman to perform at a Super Bowl, gave it all she had and more.