When Did Art Stop Being About Resistance?

Many Americans are learning in real time that they’ve been lied to, and the cognitive dissonance must be causing a glitch.

Because ain’t no way the same people who celebrated the cultural significance of Sinners last year can’t understand how significant Bad Bunny’s performance was last night. There is no way the same people who couldn’t get enough of how Black Kendrick’s performance was—are now missing how Black Bad Bunny’s performance was. Ain’t no way.

Can we please be honest with each other? Black Americans discomfort had nothing to do with not understanding the words. 

We’ve grown accustomed to being the cultural heartbeat of this country, so when someone else takes the mic even with permission, it feels like displacement instead of expansion. But that was the point of the performance. America has never been a solo act. It’s always been a remix. A cipher. A collision of stolen lands, stolen bodies, stolen labor, and stolen languages trying to make something survivable out of something violent.

Bad Bunny reminded us the Americas share a story. Colonization. Exploitation. Resistance. Survival. Rhythm as refuge. Music as memory. Dance as defiance.

Resistance has always looked like refusal: refusal to assimilate, refusal to soften, refusal to be palatable, refusal to explain yourself to people who benefit from not understanding. That performance wasn’t for everyone. And that’s exactly why the discourse around it is so intense and important.

Art that never makes you uncomfortable isn’t art. It’s anesthesia. And after years of feel-good music, feel-good movies, feel-good messaging, we’ve forgotten how to sit with discomfort without trying to edit it, soften it, monetize it, or turn it into a meme.

But discomfort is where transformation lives. Discomfort is where bias is exposed. Discomfort is where power is interrogated. Discomfort is where the mirror stops flattering us.

So no, I don’t need English to enjoy a performance. I don’t need translation to recognize resistance and cultural pride. I don’t need comfort to call something art.

What I need is art that reminds me who we were. Art that challenges who we are. Art that dares us to become who we claim we want to be. And if that makes us uncomfortable? 

Good. 

That means it’s working.