Dear White People Re: Kendrick's Halftime Show

Oh boy

I know a lot of white people loved Kendrick’s halftime show. I’m not talking to y’all right now. I’m talking to the other white people. The ones who hated the halftime show. I’m trying to really listen to your critiques but it’s hard because there’s a lot of white fragility getting in the way. But one thing I keep hearing is that many white people think this performance was not right for the Super Bowl. That particular platform should not have hosted this performance. Many people said “It wasn’t for everybody.” The word everybody is doing A LOT of work in that sentence.

In general, when you say “everybody,” but you mean “white people,” you’re being whitecentric. You’re implicitly saying white people are who matters. But “everybody” does not include only white people. I heard some Fox News white people whining about how there weren’t any white dancers onstage—suddenly they understand the importance of diversity and inclusion and representation. I heard Barstool Sports white people complaining that there weren’t enough “hits,” as in songs that reached non-hiphop fans. As in, songs that catered to them, to white casual fans, rather than Kendrick’s core hiphop fans. To be fair, even Joe Budden criticized Kendrick’s set list, but let me drop this fact into the conversation: 7 out of the 10 songs Kendrick did at the Super Bowl are songs that he owns in full. He focused on songs that he owns, rather than songs that he has just a piece of because they’re owned by companies. That was another way that he played and won the game.