I already know this is going to make somebody mad. That’s fine. I say what I say. I write what I write. And honestly… I could say a whole lot more about a whole lot more, but I love you ALL too much to go full scorched earth on a Sunday.

Also, before we get into the halftime show… let me say this plain:

I don’t care if you’re white, black, tan, purple, brown, blue, have horns, show up with a tail, or sparkle in the sun like a vampire in a teen movie. People are people. We all need to feel loved, feel seen, feel important to someone.

Now… if you tell me you’re a cat and you use a litter box… I’m not going to be mean to you, but I am going to quietly think, “Bless it… that’s a bit nuts.” That’s me. But even then… you’re still a human being and you still deserve decency. Respect doesn’t require agreement. It requires a decent soul… and apparently that’s getting rare.

Now. Every year the Super Bowl halftime show does exactly what it was hired to do… entertain, sell ads, push the boundaries just a bit, then watch America unravel like a Walmart cart with one bad wheel.

This year, the halftime performer is Bad Bunny. And like clockwork, people immediately made it into a whole thing.

The first loud opinion I saw floating around was: “He’s not even American!” Some of y’all will argue with a map and still feel confident. Ummm. Puerto Rico is America. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and U.S. citizens don’t need a passport to travel between the mainland and Puerto Rico. 

So if your argument starts with “He’s not American” you’re not making a point… you’re just announcing you skipped geography, history and reading comprehension, then showed up anyway like it’s group work.

And here’s the part that makes my eye twitch:

🇵🇷 A whole lot of folks don’t mind Puerto Rico when it’s convenient.

🇵🇷 Y’all don’t mind vacationing there.

🇵🇷 Y’all don’t mind those turquoise waters and Old San Juan charm.

🇵🇷 Y’all don’t mind Puerto Rican food showing up at the cookout like you the recipe.

🇵🇷 Y’all don’t mind Puerto Rican actors, athletes, culture, music when it’s packaged up neat for your entertainment.

It’s funny how “America” gets real selective when it’s time to share the stage. But the second Puerto Rico is center stage and speaking Spanish at full volume… suddenly we’ve got a crisis on our hands.

That’s not patriotism. That’s discomfort wearing a flag as a cape.

“Is it the music?” Totally fair. Taste is personal. If you don’t like Bad Bunny’s music, okay. Nobody is going to drag you into the living room by your ankles and make you dance. You can mute it, refill your queso, check the score, live your best life.

But what’s not fair is going straight to F THAT and acting like the halftime show personally threatened your bloodline. Because the halftime show isn’t a citizenship test. It isn’t a theology quiz. It isn’t a gender panic drill. It’s a performance in the middle of football.

“Is it the dress thing?” Some folks are also mad about the dress thing like fabric on a man is a national emergency. Quick reminder: a whole lot of you loved Braveheart. Men in kilts. Skirts. Fabric tubes of freedom. Same family.

And if we’re gonna drag the Bible into it like we always do when we’re mad at something modern… the men back then weren’t out here in Wranglers and Ariats. They wore robes. Flow-y garments. A dress-adjacent situation. If cloth ruins your masculinity, honey, the cloth isn’t the problem.

Let’s talk about what America happily loves from Puerto Rico

Because this is where the hypocrisy starts sweating.

🇵🇷 America loves Puerto Rico’s rum. Casa Bacardí is in Puerto Rico and calls itself the world’s largest rum distillery. 

🇵🇷 America loves Puerto Rico’s coffee too.

🇵🇷 America loves the beaches, the music, the food, the vibe.

🇵🇷 And America loves what Puerto Rico produces that most people never think about. Puerto Rico’s economy is a major life sciences manufacturing and export powerhouse. 

So yes… please tell me more about how Puerto Rico “isn’t America” while America is benefiting from Puerto Rico in ways you don’t even notice.

The part I actually care about

🇺🇸 This isn’t really about a halftime show. It never is.

🇺🇸 This is about how fast we’ve trained ourselves to turn every human being into a political argument instead of… a human being.

🇺🇸 You can have values without using them like a weapon.

🇺🇸 We don’t have to agree on music.

🇺🇸 We don’t have to like the same things.

🇺🇸 We don’t have to clap at the same moments.

But we do have to stop acting like someone else existing loudly is an attack. Because that’s what this is, really.

A Puerto Rican artist. On the biggest stage. With the whole world watching. And for some people, the problem isn’t the beat. The problem is the visibility. So maybe this year we try something radical: less outrage, more humanity.

❤️ Let people be people.

❤️ Let cultures be celebrated without a meltdown.

❤️ Let a halftime show be a halftime show.

Anyway… enjoy the game. Or don’t. But try being kind while you’re at it.

Journeys With Jani thoughts for the night:

🤓 You can dislike a song without disliking a whole group of people.

🎤 You can skip a performance w/o turning it into a moral crisis.

❤️‍🔥 You can be passionate without being cruel.

Now excuse me while I start making appetizers for the game and the show… mostly because I want to see what everybody is going to pretend they’re traumatized by next.

XOXO, Jani