sunn-kist

[sunn-kist]

have you ever been told you look like a celebrity?

yes (who? 👀)

no

[sunn-kist]

A Crash Course to Kendrick's Super Bowl Performance, from a Black Woman

Note: this does NOT go in depth into all of the song's lyrics. I don't have time to recount two decades of his discography. This is just a summary of the performance itself.

Let's start with the first visual we get:

UNCLE SAM - most notably recognized from WWII American wartime propaganda, Uncle Sam is the personification of American patriotism and freedom. The term "uncle" is also evocative of Uncle Tom from Uncle Tom's Cabin, an abolitionist book that aided in inciting the Civil War. Uncle is also a very common term (both endearment and derogatory) towards Black men (eg. "unc"). Samuel L Jackson was fantastic.

Uncle Sam also resembles a circus ringleader, notable for my next point:

THE GREAT AMERICAN GAME - no, not Super Bowl. The GAG is us the people being pitted against each other: through late-stage capitalism, through the culture war, through class warfare, through being built of the backs of slaves. We are all players in the GAG because none of us on this site were the oligarchs seated at the inauguration.

This is also seen as Kendrick's stage was a Play Station controller. Not only did it remind of circus rings visually, but it was a game battle stage. The Great American Game is a battle royale of the commoners for the amusement of the rich whites.

Remember the foods / Them color was tin and brown / But now they 100 and blue - For this I'll just say, look what the last election said about lowering the price of eggs... and look at the prices now.

The revolution about to be televised / You picked the right time / But the wrong guy - Election 2024 once more.

THE FLAG DANCERS - yes, the dancers formed the US flag... off of the backs of Black people. Not a single white person in sight, and that's true of the cotton pickers in the fields. Plantations are part of how the US came to economic prominence after being a "backwater" colony. Remember tobacco? Cotton? Our bloodlines do.

The red and blue dancers are also notable for representing the Crips and Bloods, two infamous street gangs. The dance in Not Like Us is the Crip Walk. I recommend researching more on your own time about them, but just know they are a large part of the stereotype of Black people being "ghetto."

TOO LOUD, TOO RECKLESS, TOO GHETTO. Do you really know how to play the game? - This is exactly what Black people, especially Black men, get told all the time. It's why we change our names on resumes if they sound "too Black." It's why we codeswitch in non-Black company. This is especially rich considering how non-Black people love our culture and love to make money off of us, as the latter part of the quote points to. And it's even more profound during the Super Bowl-- the NFL is majority Black players.

STREET LIGHT A CAPELLA -- "thug" stereotype dancers to counteract the a capella connotations, with Uncle Sam then saying that Kendrick figured out "bringing other street guys around being a culture cheat code." Yes, this is a direct hit at Drake (listen to "Not Like Us") but also politically. Look up "model minority". Notably I would point to Candace Owens, or the Miami Venezuelan political group that's been in the news recently, especially as this directly led to Kendrick being surrounded by...

DANCERS IN WHITE -- it's white America. That's... that's the allegory.

NOT LIKE US TEASER -- Kendrick says "Not Like Us" is "their favorite song." -> he means white people specifically here. It comes after he's surrounded by all white dancers, the women around him who are his call and response are also in white (my opinion, they represent the industry). He's saying "Not Like Us" is the favorite of yts because it is about BLACK MEN FIGHTING. This again is reflected in the video game stage and ringleader Uncle Sam.

SZA -- instead of giving what they want, we see SZA. She's one of Drake's exes and Kendrick has always supported her.

ALL THE STARS -- This was in the first Black Panther movie, which I recommend you watch. Rest in Power Chadwick. Notably, this movie was incredibly mainstream as a major Marvel movie, and then we have Uncle Sam say...

"THAT'S WHAT AMERICA WANTS: NICE AND CALM. DON'T MESS THIS UP" -- translation: Marvel (the industry, America, etc.) wanted a safe, semi-pop song because white American likes safe pop songs, not Kendrick's usual heavy rap style about his life as a Black man! Don't mess up what you've got going mainstream for having this "Black rap feud" with Drake, who is an R&B model minority to white people because he's safe.

So what does Kendrick say?

IT'S A CULTURAL DIVIDE / IMMA GET IT ON THE FLOOR -- He was warned not to be political or apologetically Black for this Super Bowl performance, but he is using this big stage opportunity to speak out.

40 ACRES AND A MULE / THIS IS BIGGER THAN THE MUSIC -- 40 acres and a mule are what the freed slaves were promised. Instead, this land went to white sharecroppers. Research Jim Crow laws.

THEY TRIED TO RIG THE GAME / BUT YOU CAN'T FAKE INFLUENCE -- rig the election, rig the industry like with model minority Drake, rig the Great American Game with culture war to distract from active class warfare.

NOT LIKE US -- the only thing I'll mention because it made me holler is Serena Williams crip walking on Drake's metaphorical grave. She's another one of his exes.

TURN THE TV OFF -- exactly like he said! The TV is a distraction, the Super Bowl is a distraction, the mainstream news is often a distraction. Turn it off and get with your people!

GAME OVER — could not see this on my stream but at the end of the performance, the lights in the stadium spelled this out. The world is watching, America…

In conclusion, Kendrick Lamar is a visionary and thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[sunn-kist]

[sunn-kist]

[sunn-kist]

"Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."

"It's a lot more complicated than that --"

"No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, it means they're getting worried they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts."

"Oh. I'm sure there are worse crimes --"

"But they starts with thinking about people like things..."

- Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

[sunn-kist]

[sunn-kist]

I saw the term "malgendering", which is only recognizing someone's gender identity when it can be used to hurt them, and that's such a nice succinct way to describe both massive institutional issues (a trans women who is arrested for public indecency when taking off her top and then sent to a men's prison, mandatory military service countries that require both trans women and trans men to serve, a trans man being denied ovarian cancer care because that's "for women") and the smaller scale social interactions of "well since you're a man now I can hit you" and "don't like random dick pics? too bad. welcome to womanhood" and the godawful usage of theyfab

there's also the more subtle, manipulative forms. if someone uses any pronouns and you want to paint them as dangerous and a threat, stick with "he". if you want to make him seem irrational and whiny instead, call her a Karen. if you disagree on transfem issues, he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. if you disagree on transmasc issues, she should mind her own business. you see?

if you have a good gender and a bad gender this will always be an issue. kill gender essentialism alongside bioessentialism

[sunn-kist]

What a time to be alive.

Happy Black History Month to all and to all a good night ❤️🖤💚

[sunn-kist]

baked beans. u don't know how abnormal i am about them.

bonus boat boys. etho's hair is very tasty.

[sunn-kist]

I only use my ability to draw passable horses for evil. Related: centaur equestrianism.

[sunn-kist]

Watch Tracy Chapman Start a Quiet Revolution

You guys may be too young to remember, but I remember tuning in on TV with 600 million other viewers to watch Stevie Wonder live at Wembley Stadium for Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday celebration tribute in 1988. There were technical difficulties and Stevie Wonder couldn't go on yet. The crowd was antsy, milling around, singing their own songs. The TV cameras were rolling and the show had to go on, so TOTALLY UNKNOWN ARTIST TRACY CHAPMAN GOT UP ON STAGE AND PLAYED FAST CAR ARMED WITH ONLY HER GUITAR.

The crowd fell silent. Captivated by the absolute raw honesty and talent on display. Did we know we were witnessing history? A black queer artist who would rocket to fame and win a Grammy for this song the following year? I don't remember.

What I do remember is getting to the end of the song and not caring about Stevie Wonder any more. I wanted to know who this woman was!

Watch Tracy Chapman stun a rowdy crowd into silence:

[sunn-kist]

i need people to understand that making a blanket statement about what corsets were or what purpose they served is like if you made a blanket statement about panties and why people wear them and you didn't specify whether you meant g string thongs or boxer briefs or a jockstrap or cotton bikinis or

[sunn-kist]

the 910s fell asleep right in front of the camera!!!!

[sunn-kist]

Yall seen teen beach movie?

I inserted some lifers into it (^_^)

(Click for better quality)

[sunn-kist]

“There are two MLKs. There once was a man named Martin Luther King Jr. who actually lived and breathed. He was a radical who believed in the redistribution of wealth, argued for slave reparations and that wrote that moderate whites who didn’t speak out on racism were just as bad as the Ku Klux Klan. Seventy-five percent of Americans disapproved of that man when he was killed by a white supremacist in 1968. Then, there is the Martin Luther King Jr. that exists in the collective white memory. Through a complex combination of whitewashing, self-guilt and the intentional rewriting of history that absolves them of their hatred, they have painted a sanitized, impressionist portrait of a civil rights icon whose dreams were fulfilled by America’s unwavering commitment to justice and equality. Out of whole cloth, they managed to fabricate a fantastic hologram of King that is ahistorical, but still “based on a true story.” Their Martin was a lover, not a fighter. They remember a socially conservative, respectable reconciler; not an anti-establishment revolutionary. And, for their sake, his doctrine of nonviolent resistance was eventually reduced to simple “nonviolence.” This is the King they will remember this weekend.”

— Martin Luther King Jr. and the White Delusion of a ‘Non-Racist’ America (via blxckberrying)

[sunn-kist]

you think you’re going to have a normal field trip and she shows up wyd (cw *slight* flashing images)

✦ find me on instagram @the.flightless.artist ✦

[sunn-kist]

HELLLOOOO GRIBEANS ENJOYERS

this is a fun lil unreliable narrator limlife fic i've been writing that basically focuses on grian & joel's relationship but from jimmy's perspective. i have sm to say abt this fic bc it was so fun to write but for now, HERE IT IS!! i need to not open my google docs for like a week straight now