The Blackest, most woke Super Bowl ever — can’t believe I wrote that since this is the Republican NFL, but here we are — started by again featuring the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” this time performed by Sheryl Lee Ralph.
“America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM,” tweeted Lauren Boebert, leaning heavily on her all-caps key. “Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness.”
Then Rihanna performed at halftime. Despite once saying she wouldn’t perform in the Super Bowl halftime show because of the way the NFL treated Colin Kaepernick and protesting players, she was back, and make no mistake, Rihanna is one of the Blackest, proudest performers of our time.
But wait, it gets Blacker.
Singer Babyface, a generational rhythm and blues singer, sang “America the Beautiful” before the game. He’s produced dozens of R&B hits and won 12 Grammy Awards.
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At this point we had the Black national anthem, Rihanna performing and two Black starting quarterbacks for the first time ever. During Black History Month. This wasn’t the Super Bowl. This was Wakanda.
But wait, it gets woker.
The traditional flyover before the game was performed by an all-women pilot team, the first time ever. Wokity wokity woke.
There was also a moment when Doug Williams, holding the Lombardi Trophy, was introduced to the crowd. He was the first Black quarterback to ever start a Super Bowl.
One of the ads during the Super Bowl was for a Fox show about farmers dating called ‘Farmer Wants a Wife,’ and one of the farmers is Black. On a Fox show. You know when we got Black farmers on Fox, wokeness has run amok .
In the first half, after Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce scored, he broke out a highly NSFW version of the ‘stanky leg’ dance. I’m going to count that as part of the The Black Super Bowl, too.
Yes, some of this is tongue-in-cheek, but a lot isn’t. The Super Bowl has become not just a game or a party, but also in some ways a mirror for us all. It reflects what we love, what we believe in, what we hate, what we want, what we don’t.
To some, the NFL is trying too hard to satisfy people of color and the woke mob. (Does anyone have a home base for the woke mob so I can visit?) But even if you know the NFL just a little bit, I mean a teensy-weensy bit, the league is only partially doing that.
What the league has actually done is take incremental steps to this place, and even those steps actually aren’t a huge deal. Singing the Black national anthem is miniscule progress.
The bottom line is even these small moves, made only really within the past several years, drive some people bonkers. Think about how long some version of professional football has been around, about a century or so, and these are the only real actions the league has taken that resemble anything close to being progressive. For much of the league’s existence, it’s fully embraced segregation at the quarterback position and racism against Black coaches.
That’s why these steps look so transformative when they’re really pretty basic.
What’s that saying? When you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
I’m looking forward to the next Black Super Bowl … when Roger Goodell does the ‘stanky leg.’
Actually, never mind on that last point.