The backlash to the NFL Bad Bunny halftime show announcement is problematic for so many reasons:

  • Bad Bunny is a top artist with 3 Grammys and 9 nominations
  • Bad Bunny is an avid sports fan, playing in MLB and NBA celebrity games
  • Bad Bunny is a US citizen by birth because Puerto Rico is a US Territory
  • The US has always been a melting pot of cultures and languages
  • The NFL has been courting international viewers for a long time (with recent games in Ireland and Brazil)
  • American cultural exports have improved our international standing and brought in money for US companies
  • The overlap of people watching the halftime show and those watching the game was never that significant to begin with
  • Most people don’t know the words to rap and hip-hop songs in English anyway

It’s fine if people don’t like the halftime artist. The show rarely makes everyone happy. But to define anything Latin as “anti-American” is thinly veiled racism. We shouldn’t accept treating other Americans that way just like we should accept treating non-Americans inhumanely.