It's Official: I'm a Racist

Oh, so this is what racism feels like. Who knew? According to all the reviews this morning, the only people who didn't enjoy last night's Super Bowl halftime show were racists. Or else very old Republican white men, which is the same thing. Since I am not the latter, I must be the former.

Admittedly no football fan -- the last time I watched a game was last year's Super Bowl  -- still I desperately worked to understand what all the fuss is over a crowd of men in latex outfits running around with a little ball piling on top of each other to the point of injury. Last night several players went down grabbing a knee and grimacing in pain, then were helped off the field to sit on the sidelines. 

I didn't really get any of it, although the party we attended had great food: ribs and wings and twice-baked potatoes! One of the other guests in attendance told me she read that the average person watching the Super Bowl ingests 8,000 calories during the game. I didn't do that, but let's just say that this morning I'm still full.

I hope she was wearing Depends.

Anyway, the game itself was confusing enough but the halftime show mystified me even more. Born in Brooklyn, raised on Long Island and living in Manhattan for my college years, I have never been to Compton, which it turns out was the map on the floor during the 12-minute, all-black (except for that lone white boy Eminem) show. I had no idea what that was! Also, I couldn't understand what any of the rappers were saying, and why all of them, including the dancers on the floor below them, kept grabbing their crotches while singing. It looked to me like they all had to pee, or were about to. (See photo.)

I also didn't understand the meaning of the stage set-up, and the parked cars, and why Mary J. Blige would cover all of herself except her thunder thighs, which were downright scary. (And while we're on Mary, someone should tell her that try as she did to channel her she is no Tina Turner, who I worshipped for years so am I still a racist anyway?) 

See what I mean? I was confused about all of it until this morning when I learned that it was the greatest halftime show in history and may have changed the course of all mankind going forward, and if I hated it all and played Words With Friends on my phone during most of it it's because I'm an old white racist and not for any other reason. Forget that I may have different tastes in music and expectations about showmanship; that only underscores my racism.

It sucks to be me. But not as much as a guy in Texas who tweeted,  "What would have been appropriate and accurate is a stolen car on the field at the end of the performance doing an actual drive by and mowing down half of them."

Now that's funny.