Super Bowl Halftime Show Is Another Capitalist Cooptation of Black Culture

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Q. Anthony Omene, Toronto-based freelance writer and historian to discuss the roots of the ongoing “Freedom Convoy” protest against COVID-19 measures in Canada, the class character of the protest and the reactionaries organizing the protests, the dark money behind the protests and how that debunks the claim that this is a working-class movement, and the myth of Canada as a “kinder younger brother” to the US.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Taya Graham and Stephen Janis, hosts of the Police Accountability Report on The Real News Network to discuss corrupt policing in the town of Milton, West Virginia and what it reveals about the political economy of policing in small rural towns, how the cases in Milton reveal the true purpose of the police to enforce inequality and enact violence against working-class people, and how traffic stops and policing not only keep poor people poor but also make people afraid to speak out and exercise political power.

In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Vicki Cervantes, North America Coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network to discuss the arrest of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, the organized crime, narcotics, and corruption that flourished under Hernandez and the blind eye that the US turned because of his service to the capital, what looms for Hernandez in his trial, which will be overseen by a judge who is a member of Hernandez’s party, and the destruction that current president Xiomara Castro has inherited from Hernandez’s presidency.

Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Jared Ball, a father, husband, Professor of Africana Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD, the curator of imixwhatilike.org and author of the book, “The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power” to discuss the celebrity gloss being slathered onto cryptocurrency in order to draw more people into the crypto bubble, the censorship of Kendrick Lamar and the anti-police line in his 2015 hit “Alright” and how it exemplifies the cooptation of Black musical artists and Black culture, and how Kanye West and his current antics exemplify the toxicity of celebrity culture.