Musings of an Aging Nobody

Friday evening Kim and I took Cameron to dinner.  He told us about something that happened at school that day where one of his classmates was having some trouble completing his work. Cameron said he told his friend that if he needed help, he should just ask Jesus and He would help him.

You got to love that.

Super Bowl Weekend.

Since we are Steelers fans we didn’t really have any skin in the big game.  However, Donny was a big San Francisco Forty-Niners fan back in the Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Deion Sanders early 90’s so we saw the Super Bowl as an opportunity to share a moment with one of our kids even though he wasn’t able to physically share it with us.  So we got a couple of Forty-Niners tee shirts and busted out some of Donny’s San Francisco 49er gear that we had stored away in the house.  Then we got a bag of Doritos and sat down on the couch to watch the game.

It was a good game though we were a little disappointed, the 49ers didn’t win and I thought the commercials were just okay.

Ah, but the half time show sure caused a big stir.

I certainly understand, the game is in the Miami area and you have two dynamic Latina singers and dancers appropriately scheduled as the half time show.

In the end, the debate ensued as to whether the show was appropriate for prime time national television audiences.

I don’t know about you, but I can tell you sitting on the couch watching Shakira and Jennifer Lopez performing with my wife right there next to me, yeah,  there might have been a time or two I wanted to pick up that bag of  Doritos and read the Nutrition Facts with something like:

“Hey, honey did you know these Doritos have 150 calories per serving?”

Or say something I have used before like, “Hey how about those Nat’s?”

I could see how some folks were squirming a little.

But the most ridiculous thing I read the next day was a piece by a young Latina writer who insisted she knew what the whole issue was really about.

Racism.

Yup, racism.

In an article titled “Dear White People: The Super Bowl Halftime Show Wasn’t Too Sexy, You’re Just Racist” she argued that if you were uncomfortable watching the Super Bowl Halftime show you are a racist.

Imagine that?

That would be like somebody telling me “Dear white person Curt:  It’s Not That You Don’t Like Bean Burritos Because They Give You Gas! You are Just a Racist!”

Come on.

Maybe you have young kids and don’t want to explain in the middle of a Super Bowl party what all that was about.  Maybe you would prefer to wait until they were ready to go to college.

I was told by my daughter that my four-year-old grandson watched with his mouth open then commented on what Shakira was able to do with her butt.   Though he is part Latino,  I think it better that he have a little more time to understand these things.

Or maybe you’re a mom watching with a couple of your teenage boys and had to sit and squirm, watching in silence, probably wishing you had a bag of Doritos in reach.

Or maybe you are just an older conservative-minded individual who just doesn’t understand this younger generation.

There were lots of reasons why some folks might have felt uncomfortable watching that performance, but I am pretty comfortable saying one of them probably wasn’t racism.

You would have to have been living in the wilderness for the last twenty or thirty years to somehow not be familiar with the talent and the success of these two women.  From In Living Color, American Idol, The Voice, countless movies, and music videos; American television viewers were not surprised and therefore angered by who the performers were.

There wasn’t any “Hey honey, can you believe it? There are Spanish people dancing on TV!”

My family is interesting.  We have white Christians, Jews, Latinos, Lebanese, and African-Americans.

And I would guess we aren’t that different from a lot of families.

And I am told that my son-in-law was once a pretty good salsa dancer (he is part Latino).

And though I love my son-in-law I think if I had to watch him salsa dance I would be squirming and reaching for the bag of Doritos in that situation as well.

I don’t know too much about this young lady who felt inclined to turn this situation into one promoting hate, but I am guessing maybe she doesn’t have any young children, or teenage children, or children at all.  I am guessing she hasn’t experienced a Christmas Eve comprised of white Christians, Jews, Latinos, Lebanese, and African-Americans reading the story of the birth of Jesus.

I am guessing she doesn’t have the experience or the wisdom of the two fine Latina ladies who have made themselves so successful and well known to all of us.

She doesn’t understand that it didn’t have anything to do with them as people and especially what part of the world they were born in.

Maybe Cameron’s words of encouragement for his friend at school would help this young author too.

I don’t know how Donny would have felt about the halftime show.  I don’t think even if he was with me in the room we would have been high-fiving each other.  He might have had kids that he had to think about as well.  And his mom was right there!

We will never know.

By the way, to the young author who wrote the piece, you have a typo in line four.