By Michael Smith | Reflective MVS
The Win That Hit Different
Last night, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. Seattle beat New England 29–13, and for a lot of folks it was just football, fireworks, and that final confetti shot you pretend doesn’t make you emotional.
For me, it’s personal.
Because one of my earliest pieces on Reflective MVS was about my Uncle Sherman Smith, and why representation isn’t a corporate buzzword, it’s a survival tool. I wrote it as Black History Month opened, and I meant every line: Youngstown roots, a grandfather who refused to let the steel mill be the ceiling, a man who played in the NFL and then turned around and coached, mentored, and widened the map for the next generation.
→ Celebrating the Triumphs of Marginalized Communities: My Uncle’s Story
So when Seattle stands on top of the league again, you can’t tell me that legacy doesn’t matter. Not in this city. Not in this country. Not in this moment.
And then halftime hit, and America did what America does: it found a way to make somebody else’s joy sound like a threat.
Halftime With Its Shoulders Back
Bad Bunny took the biggest stage in American sports and didn’t ask permission to be Puerto Rican in public. The symbolism wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t supposed to be. It was culture with its shoulders back.
That’s what representation looks like when it’s not watered down into a “diversity” commercial. It’s language, cadence, bodies, flags, references, family, pride. It’s a refusal to translate yourself into something more comfortable for people who think “American” is a gated community.
And right on schedule, the backlash arrived like a poorly timed door-to-door salesman.
The Backlash, Right on Schedule
Donald Trump hopped online to trash the halftime show, calling it “absolutely terrible,” dressing up xenophobia in the cheap tuxedo of “values.” The NFL, to its credit, didn’t fold. Reports made clear the league stood by booking Bad Bunny despite the political pressure.
Then you had the counter-programming clown car: Turning Point USA running an “All-American” alternative halftime show, the kind of title that always sounds like it’s one banjo riff away from a sundown town.
And yes, specific names attached themselves to the outrage machine, because attention is their only renewable resource. Rolling Stone tracked the MAGA fury and how quickly the pile-on formed around “Spanish-speaking” as the real sin.
Here’s the part folks keep missing on purpose: this wasn’t really about choreography, lyrics, or “keeping politics out of football.” Bad Bunny didn’t need to deliver a stump speech for the backlash to expose itself. The offense was simpler than that.
The Real “Offense”: Presence
Presence.
A Puerto Rican artist, centered. Spanish on the loudest speakers in the country. Millions watching. Kids watching. A reminder, in the middle of an immigration crackdown political climate, that the people being argued over are still human beings with culture, talent, joy, and the audacity to exist without begging.
That’s why this story belongs in the same family as the one I wrote last year, when Kendrick Lamar referenced “40 acres and a mule” and the usual suspects acted like history itself had jumped them in a parking lot. The meltdown wasn’t about Kendrick. It was about what happens when Black memory refuses to stay quiet.
→ From “40 Acres and a Mule” to Kendrick Lamar: The History They Don’t Want You to Remember
Same script, new performer.
They call it “divisive” when the stage stops reflecting only them. They call it “political” when the broadcast admits America has more than one language in its mouth. They call it “un-American” when the country looks like the country.
And that brings me back to my uncle.
The Thread That Ties It Together
In 2023, I wrote that representation expands what young people believe is possible, especially when you come from places the map pretends are disposable. Sherman Smith wasn’t just a Seahawk. He’s evidence. Living, breathing evidence that talent can come from the margins and still leave fingerprints on the center.
Bad Bunny’s halftime show was the same kind of evidence, for a different community, in a different key.
So if you felt proud last night, hold onto it. If you felt seen, don’t apologize for it. And if you felt threatened by it? Tell the truth about that too. The rest of us are tired of your lies wearing red-white-and-blue makeup.
Final reflection
America loves our culture like it loves halftime. Loud, profitable, and safely contained. But the minute we show up with history, language, and pride that doesn’t ask permission, the same folks start screaming that the country is “changing.” Good. It needed to. And it’s been changing the whole time, whether they clap or not.
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