With Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show being almost entirely comprised of Black artists making Black music, with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige among the headliners, it was only a matter of time before right-wingers started pitching a fit.
For right-wing ideologue Rudy Giuliani, however, it was the lone white person on the stage, rapper Eminem, that got him in his feelings. Like many right-wingers, the moment during Eminem's performance when he "took a knee" in reference to black-balled NFL player Colin Kaepernick's now-legendary protest against racism and police brutality, had Giuliani outraged.
So much so that in a recent episode of his radio show, Giuliani resorted to every conservative's favorite response to any protest that comes from a non-conservative person--telling Eminem to leave the United States if he has a problem with racism.
Listen to his comments below.
Giuliani ranted:
"Let's get right to Eminem taking a knee."
“Why doesn't he go to another country? I mean, go take a knee someplace else.
As many pointed out on Twitter, Giuliani's anger about Eminem's taking a knee is a bit strange since conservatives' stated objection to the protest has always been that it disrespects the national anthem.
But Eminem's knee was taken during his own song, "Lose Yourself." Makes you wonder if it's something other than the anthem that actually bothers them, doesn't it?
Anyway, Giuliani next moved on to what he does best: saying the quiet part out loud. After telling him to get out of the country, Giuliani implied Eminem is anti-cop because he's anti-racism.
"You know how many cops were defending him and protecting him at that game yesterday?"
Giuliani then dug into the Black Lives Matter movement, accusing them of actually murdering police.
"The simple reality is the NFL has made a mockery out of law enforcement, particularly with its support for the cop-killing Black Lives Matter."
Giuliani did not offer an explanation for how an anti-racism movement, which is to say an idea, could be capable of killing cops, or why he thinks a movement addressing cops killing Black people is a movement advocating for the killing of cops. But then, making sense is rarely Giuliani's strong suit.
Anyway, lest you think Giuliani saved all his disses for Eminem, he went on to also accuse rapper Snoop Dogg of murdering police and spoke with audible disgust about Kaepernick and the "take a knee" protest he started in 2016.
On Twitter, Giuliani's hot take elicited a giant collective eye-roll.
Giuliani may have hated the halftime show, but social media loved it, and so did television audiences: Nielsen reported this week that more than 103 million viewers tuned in to see the hip hop extravaganza, a 7% increase over last year's show.
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