From the Desk of Kate Sinkins: When Bad Means Better
Bad Bunny is the star of the Super Bowl’s Half-Time show. He recently won 3 Grammys Awards. Regardless of whether you like his music, you know him. He’s EVERYWHERE. He is touring and selling out stadiums; except he is NOT touring in the United States and Canada. Why? Because he is afraid Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers will target his fans, wait in the venue’s parking lot, to intimidate and threaten people going to a concert.
He was born Puerto Rico, which makes him an American. He has chosen to exercise his First Amendment Right to free speech and expressly stated that he will not tour in the U.S. to keep his fans safe. He is choosing to forego millions of dollars in ticket sales to keep people safe. People like the mailman, your first-grade teacher, the cashier at Fred Meyer, the bank teller at Wells Fargo, everyday people are being targeted solely based on the color of their skin. Bad Bunny knows this, understands the government could surge ICE officers to every one of the concert venues he would perform at, and so he chose to protect people. Fear is an awful thing. It eats away at your courage, your confidence, your feeling of safety and security. As a man with brown skin, Bad Bunny knows what it means to be targeted and is rising above.
I do not feel fear when I get into my car to drive to work, or when I go to the post office, or when I go to the Pines Dine. There are many people in Lincoln County, Oregon, though, who are not going to work, who are afraid to drive their kids to school, who do not feel safe going to buy groceries. It is not because ICE raids are occurring on the Oregon coast, or because we have experienced the violence occurring in Minneapolis. Breaking the driver’s side window of a car to physically pull a person out of a car is unnecessary violence. Pounding on the door of an apartment at 2 am because ICE suspects a person living there does not have lawful status is unnecessary violence. Detaining a father and son and then asking that five-year-old son to knock on the door so his mother would open the door is unnecessary violence. We see the photos, we watch the videos, we see the protests and tear gas. What is the goal of the surges, the camouflage, the masks, the lack of identification of agency worn by the men who are using violence to intimidate immigrants?
The goal is fear and intimidation-fear of the other, fear of someone who may be different from you. Some people are upset that Bad Bunny’s half-time show will be mostly sung in Spanish. Why? Because some folks will not understand the lyrics or the cultural references. In the half-time show, he sang about the Americas. He starts by naming Chile, Argentina, and makes his way through the South American countries, then the Central American countries and finishes with the U.S. and Canada. By naming all the countries considered to be in the Americas, he creates space for all of us to consider the bigger picture.
We live in a country where most of the land settled by Native Americans has been taken from them and given to white English settlers. The U.S. is known as a country of immigrants because everyone, but Native Americans came from somewhere else. We live in a country which celebrates diversity and has been a shining beacon of hope to so many people who believe in the American Dream.
The American Dream is for everyone–Black, Asian, Latinx, White, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim. The beauty of the Bill of Rights is that everyone is welcome. I believe that everyone in Lincoln County has a role to play and deserves the space to contribute their time and talent to making America a welcoming, productive, compassionate nation. Most Europeans speak two to three languages and yet here in the United States, some people feel threatened because the Super Bowl half-time performance was in Spanish? Those who speak different languages, celebrate different religions, eat different food, practice different customs, only enrich the beautiful tapestry that is America.
