The Super Bowl doesn't deserve Amanda Gorman

Jezebel

The NFL has tapped Gorman, the National Youth Poet Laureate who became a sensation after reading one of her original poem's at President Biden's inauguration, to recite a poem during the Super Bowl pregame ceremonies in tribute dedicated to three heroes of the pandemic. But as Shannon Melero argues, Gorman can't class up the Super Bowl. "The NFL does not deserve Amanda Gorman and particularly they do not deserve her in the league’s wishy-washy post-Colin Kaepernick era, when football leadership pretends to support Black Lives Matter, but isn’t super into stopping systemic racism by, say, acknowledging its existence," says Melero. She adds: "Asking a young, Black, socially conscious poet to perform before the Super Bowl, in part to honor a nurse, is laughable. Despite the pandemic, roughly 22,000 fans will be in attendance at the stadium on game day. The mere fact that this event is taking place in front of a live audience spits in the face of Amanda Gorman’s pre-game performance and her presence puts a pretty filter over the NFL’s track record of upholding systemic racism. Amanda Gorman called out the legacy of enslavement at a historic inauguration and now you want her to cast out her pearls of wisdom in between Doritos commercials?"