Maybe it Wasn't About Football

Brianna Myers for Race & Gender in the Media

Superbowl Sunday, basically a holiday here in the country. If it so happened that one year it happened to fall on another day, I'm convinced many people would call in "sick." It only seems fitting that this year somehow a game of football also revolved around race.Cam Newton, a black quarterback of the Carolina Panthers versus Peyton Manning, quarterback of the Denver Broncos.

Newton this entire season has been under scrutiny for his so called "racy" dance celebrations, but are they really "inappropriate?"Can't help but wonder why it's such a big deal. Maybe it's because he's black and successful and we all know how much white America loves to tear that down. Back in November a mom wrote a letter to Newton basically saying that he wasn't living up to his role model potential and his dance moves scarred her 9-year-old daughter.

1. It doesn't say anywhere in his NFL that he has an obligation to be a role model.
2. Newton is known for giving footballs to children in the stands and taking the fine for it.
3. If your daughter hasn't seen the dab dance move by now, you're sheltering her too much and she's already off to a bad start.

Not only was it black quarterback aka thug versus white quarterback aka angel, the most influential icon of our time, Beyonce, made reference to the Black Lives Matter movement during her halftime performance. Performing her newly released song "Formation" Beyonce's background dancers were donned outfits paying homage to the Black Panthers, one of the most influential civil rights group. The radical halftime performance led to an anti-Beyonce protest of Queen Bey in New York. As in, "We should protest Beyonce because she said something mean about the police." Get over it. Police are killing people for being black.

From a media point of view, the Super Bowl was way more about other things than just football this year. Newton had something to prove. Beyonce used this platform to show that we have not forgotten. We will not forget until justice is served.