As a result of the 2024 presidential election, “Salute-gate,” and all things angling to turn back the clock on America, I found myself needing to engage in a creative outlet for the sake of my well-being.
Circa January 2025, Black folks in the community and on the interwebs made appeals to be about the business of rest and resistance. I chose to do TikTok lives and share my studies on peace, discernment, and faith. And I looked for others to be encouraged by what they chose to create in this season of life.
We are approaching the one-year anniversary of one of my personal faves: Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. What stuck with me the most is that we got an opportunity in that show to witness what happens when we have the freedom to demonstrate to the world what has not been accounted for in generations past: our dignity.
The complaints that Kendrick’s performance was “too political” was a tell-tale sign that what really bothered some was the collective unconscious of white supremacy in the media being disrupted. The performance was a marked shift from our regularly scheduled programming. This time around though, we were the creators and not the subjects.
It has been a long time coming.
During Reconstruction, those with social and monetary currency used media to overtly feed a system of Black subjugation. Upset that white Southerners lost their free labor and now had to suffer the indignity of watching the colored people rise in dignity and, hence, become more like them, various images were created and circulated to ensure that at least the social hierarchy would remain intact.
This is where we see posters with caricatures like the one with Black people eating watermelons. The way I know that these images were to a degree “successful” is because to this day, I know numerous Black people who do not feel comfortable eating watermelon in “mixed company.” For those who struggle to do so, the image has stripped a sense of their dignity.
Post Civil Rights Movement, resentment toward affirmative action began to grow, carrying the sentiment that white people are the ones being discriminated against and Black people are given a privilege that they did not earn nor deserve. Angry white folks protested with signs. Police officers used water hoses to thwart the attempts of Black folks to rise in dignity and, hence, become more like them.
Once the Civil Rights Act became law, there was less freedom to be belligerently racist. But where there is a will, there is a way.
During this same time, American Bandstand became a nationally syndicated success. It became the premiere place for musicians to showcase their work. The show that carried the moniker of representing the best of what America has to offer refused to allow Black teenagers to appear on the show and dance alongside the white teenagers. While there was no posted policy that excluded Black teens, in American Bandstand’s 37 years of existence, the audience would never see a Black teen featured on screen dancing next to their white counterpart.
Over a decade later, I reached an age to be able to talk about these things from lived experience and my entrée into this world of dignity through art (and answer to the segregated American Bandstand) was Soul Train.
Yet, the time that I was watching Soul Train, I was also watching The Dukes of Hazzard. My parents hated the show. They asked me why I liked it so much. I responded that I liked how the Bo and Luke Duke boys would always get one over on Boss Hogg and I thought Daisy Duke was cool. After all, just like the theme song says, they were “just some good ol’ boys, never meaning no harm.”
When I asked my parents why they did not like the show, they told me that Bo and Luke Duke drove a car that had a hateful symbol on top. It would be years later, in junior high, when I first saw the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize that I learned about the intersection of art, media, and human dignity.
Not only did the documentary teach me about the origin of the confederate flag (that was painted on the top of their car), I learned about Robert E. Lee who was a General for the Confederate Army. I was astonished when I realized that Bo and Luke’s car was named “the General Lee.”
I had feelings before I had words. I just knew at the time that I felt invisible from all vantage points. First by a show I could have cared less about (American Bandstand) and then by a show that I loved.
It was a Truman Show-level narrative that American Bandstand was a happy place where all can dance their cares away. With that system in place, there is no need to see beyond what was established. The Dukes of Hazard’s ah-shucks narrative featured likable characters “never meaning no harm.” With that structure in place, there is no space to question their choices or integrity.
The art controls the narrative. It is why museums are so important. It is why libraries are so essential. It is why ethnic studies exist — to tell the whole, complete truth. It is why Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show was pivotal for narrative transformation and hence, our dignity.
Authors note: I have not yet listened to any of Bad Bunny’s music. I will be watching his Super Bowl halftime performance this year not as a fan of his music, but as a fan of the message his presence brings.