Kendrick: America is built off of the backs of slaves whose descendants, who were promised freedom and reparations they never got, are now being told that they're not good enough for this country. We're told that we're too black, we're too ghetto, we make everything too political. The elite like to watch us fight amongst ourselves because that way they'll be safe from the consequences of their actions.

Y'all: HAHA wow, Kendrick played Not Like Us!!! Everyone called Drake a pedophile!!! Kendrick is such a hater about This One Guy and This One Guy Only, this is a single instance after all, that's so funny. Anyway (proceeds to never interact with anything else he makes ever again)

i feel like the term “dogwhistle” is becoming increasingly misused and it’s going to become dangerous at some point

dogwhistles are used as plausibly-deniable signals to other members of the in-group to signify the person as a member, while remaining at least somewhat inconspicuous to outsiders. they are not a general “oh i recognize this as terf/nazi/hategroup bullshit, therefore it’s a dogwhistle”.

“1488” is a dogwhistle. “Wombyn” is a dogwhistle. “Globalist elites” is a dogwhistle. Calling trans women “TRAs” is a dogwhistle. Saying “total jew death” or “biological males don’t belong in women’s spaces” are not dogwhistles, they are just the explicit rhetoric of neonazis and terfs, respectively.

i need people to learn to differentiate between “this is a dogwhistle” and “this is outright bigotry” because i am tired of seeing people say “omg dogwhistle” to terfs outright saying trans women are men. please. at this point it’s just giving them more plausible deniability.

You’re worthy now. As you are, wherever you are. You don’t need to have achieved your goals, or gotten to a certain point in your healing. You are worthy right now.

Football is a modern gladiator sport in which the entertainment is the long life physical injuries, traumatic brain injuries and early retirement the spectacle of American bread and circuses inflicts upon the players all in the service of a patriotic American nationalism (see Kaepernick’s treatment by the NFL).

And ever since Jay-Z stabbed Kaepernick in the back by single-handedly ending the boycott of the NFL for his own personal enrichment, we end up talking about which rapper is performing rather than the racism and devastating injuries our society inflicts upon especially Black athletes for white entertainment.

A just world wouldn’t have football in it.

The least realistic thing about the Lord of the Rings is that a team got together for a group project, decided everything in one meeting, and their plan worked.

The group abandoned the original plan halfway up Caradhras, split up several times, some group members started looking into different projects, found new partners and ended up doing something else, the original plan was abandoned early on, and the project was salvaged at the last moment by the one group member that didn’t get sidetracked. Sounds like a pretty astute description of teamwork to me

One of them also died.

LOTR Heritage Post

the way he smiled when he said his name lmaooooo

Kendrick Lamar x Not Like Us (Super Bowl)

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

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.

the details in kendricks performance are so good....... his outfit (which is baller btw) referencing his songs with his hat saying 5+5 and peakaboo & wop wop wop on his jacket, kendrick saying the revolution will be televised u picked the right time but the wrong guy, having uncle sam jackson say kendrick do u really know how to play the game while kendrick's stages are shaped like buttons on a video game controler, having serena williams featured doing the c-walk after the media blazed her for doing the same at wimbledon, the american flag being made up of black men, shouting out his hometown compton, like THIS is how u do a halftime show. gorgeous

HAPPY DAY!!!!!!!!!!

KENDRICK LAMAR + SAMUEL L. JACKSON Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show

What a time to be alive.

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

Fun thing about football right now is that there's a move called the "brotherly shove" that the Eagles do when they're very close to scoring, where the whole team puts their hands on the ass of the guy with the ball and physically propels him over the line into the endzone for the touchdown, and all the other teams' fans hate it because it's got such a ridiculously high rate of success for the Eagles and doesn't really seem to work for any other team. People are straight-up calling for this move to be banned, claiming it's "unstoppable" and gives an "unfair advantage" but it really and truly is a skill issue. The whole league hates this move because it only makes the Eagles win more often and nobody else can figure out how to do it right

Other teams are so afraid of it that they panic and do some wacky looney tunes shit to try and stop it. The refs had to come out on the field and tell the bad guys to stop doing this

because it's blatantly against the rules of football, and that if they tried it a fourth time in a row that they would just straight-up grant a free touchdown to the Eagles

They've been doing this for years now too. After one season the League looked into it and decided that no they weren't going to ban the move.

Tbf it's safer than how normally the Quarterback would just run straight ahead by himself. Instead just have your team push the other team backwards. Easy game

Also that leap doesn't even register as weird for me. Like that's literally the strat for blocking a field goal (when one team tries kicking the ball through the uprights). You're not allowed to push people down with your hands on their back and leap over but a clean leap is fine. If he timed it right everyone would be cheering for him.

Safe to say there's a correlation between doing weird stuff and being the very best. Ex: everything Mahomes and Kelce do and the Philly Special which the Eagles unveiled in the Super Bowl 7 years ago.