+5 Yes, Puerto Rico is widely considered a colony—or often described as the world’s oldest colony—due to its status as an unincorporated U.S. territory. While residents are U.S. citizens, they lack voting representation in Congress, cannot vote for president,
No hate on him, but I understand why. I’m German, but I speak English and a little Spanish as well. When I saw a video of the Superbowl halftime show, I got the symbolism, but I didn’t understand anything he was saying in Spanish.
If you’re trying to convey to the American public that you’re a well integrated subculture that deserves to be treated equally in terms of American law, I don’t think it’s very helpful if you rap about that in Spanish, because most white U.S. citizens don’t speak Spanish. So if you use all that “Mechico immigrantos good”-symbolism in the pictures, but can’t express yourself properly, it’s going to confirm their racist beliefs that integration is not successful. For me, personally, it made the first impression that this rapper is not from the U.S. mainland culture. Do mind that I had no other context or knowledge about him at that point in time. Would I have wished for a different show? No, it was still okay. But I think a mix of English and Mexican Spanish would have been more powerful.
The USA has historically had no official language. Spanish is also the second-most widely spoken language here after English.
It’s not about representing a “well-integrated subculture” (which sounds gross to me btw) but pointing out that this country’s identity is and should be about more than White English Speakers.
You’re saying this thing should pander to White America when we can see all around us the results of that attitude. Inequality and hierarchical oppression.
The show had subtitles in English. Presumably also in German and other languages. You can read them.
Fuck’s sake man.
I never said that it’s not an official language. Why accuse me of something I’ve not said? “Pointing out that this country’s identity is and should be about more than White English Speakers.” Yeah, as I said, the show was okay. But I wished I could have understood the lyrics as well. And I think a lot of other people would have wished for that as well. The ending show sign was very good though.
You haven’t read my comment by the way. I said I watched a video of it (on YouTube). There were no subtitles available under that video. I also haven’t said that this show should’ve pandered to White English speakers. That’s another baselesse accusation. I said it would have been a more powerful message, if the message he rapped about in the lyrics would have been at least partially understandable to English speakers. A mix would have shown how both languages are part of the same US-American identity. That’s what I was about.
How the fuck am I supposed to know as a German that this show had subtitles in the original tv screening? By the way, most people on Reddit have mentioned that it actually didn’t have any subtitles, so there were probably differences in to whom it was available. Maybe dependent on the tv station?
Fuck’s sake man. Why do you make up shit to get offended about? We’re on the same team. Some of you guys are a bunch of nitpicky assholes who thrive on finding things to argue about rather than trying to find things you might have in common.
It wasn’t for us, though. I speak EU Spanish and I didn’t gets lot of it, nor understand all the symbolism, but the celebration of the language and culture seems self evident.
I didn’t get all the symbolism in the Chinese Olympic opening performance, or countless other cultural performances, but I don’t see it as necessary to understand 100% to be able to appreciate the expression.
I don’t particularly care for Bad Bunny’s music, but the show felt to me like a powerful expression of cultural validity on a huge stage in a country where people are facing state violence for looking like they belong to that culture.
From what I’ve seen shared online from members of that latino/a community, they feel like it was incredibly powerful for them to see genuine representation at that level. To me that is more important than whether or not I personally understood all the language or symbolism.
Not an accusation, but part of my point.
YT not mentioned in your original comment; lack of subtitles on the video you saw not my problem nor my point.
Reread this angle a few times and maybe you’ll understand the problem. People understood the spirit of the message and that’s the real substance. That show broke viewership records: people knew what they were tuning in to and wanted to see it. Music is often called the “universal language” for a reason.
You’re not supposed to, and that’s not the point.
You’re doing exactly what you accuse me of & trying to delegitimize my points with strawman and ad hominem. With “teammates” like you, we don’t need enemies.
This is what I get for engaging with someone who talks about “successfully integrating subcultures”, I guess. Have a good life and may we never meet again.
ok, deflect then. why go through all that effort of writing all this if you don’t want an answer? Oh, right. You’re trying to pretend to yourself that you’re right.
enjoy your life in America then. seems to go swimmingly for guys like you who know everything about integration and understanding.
I don’t know everything, but I sure know better than someone who uses autistic as an insult in the year 2026.
Blocking you now. Feel free to have the last word if it makes you feel a bit more like a winner.
Thank you for blocking, fragile person. Be proxy-offended somewhere else.
Please ask Rammstein to use English more often. (this is a sarcastic joke, please tell them I love them)
Speaking Serbian in Germany is an affront to my United States heritage.
You know, this actually plays IN FAVOUR of my argument and shows that you know fuck all about Rammstein. When Rammstein made a song critical of US culture, they actually DID partiallly sing in English!
-> Amerika “We’re all living in America! Amerika, ist wunderbar!” “This is not a love song This is not a love song I don’t sing my mother tongue No, this is not a love song”
You guys don’t know shit and yet you criticize me. And the absurd thing is that I’m not even criticizing Bad Bunny, but am in favour of his message.
“We all live in America” is them satirizing how fucked up America is, in a “Yeah, sure, we’re ALL Americans, F*ck you” sort of way.
I feel like you’re angry for the sake of being angry, but you do what you’ve gotta do, bub.
I know they’re satirizing it. But that was the point, they’re still singing part about the song in English so that English speakers still understand part of it. That makes the art more powerful in my opinion.
I’m really not sure what “well integrated subculture” means or whether we should want it. Even a basic concept like “similar core values” gets messy before it gets desirable.
Well, the minimum of main culture aspects being supporting the democracy, a certain amount of tolerance for others with different opinion and looks, rule of law. “well integrated subculture” meaning people joining an already exisiting main culture in different ways, like immigrants and not being openly hostile to people with other opinions or looks who stem from other subcultures/backgrounds without proper reason. An indication of a failed integration are parallel societies within one country.
Yes, I would agree with you that polite, nonviolent and maybe even friendly interaction is positive. The main culture aspect or fundamental understanding of the US society is problematic these days. One could even argue whether it’s still exists. However, since there are many people who fight for it, you could at least argue that the idea still exists.
“we would be far poorer without the contributions from other cultures” Very much debatable. There are so many positive AND negative aspects of it. People from the ends of the political spectrum see it in a contrasting manner. Pro-immigration people will biased towards positivity á la “enrichment” while contra-immigration people will be biased towards negativity á la “criminals and rapists”. The truth is somewhere in between - both things can be true at the same time, often depending on the individuals and group dynamics. It’s complex.
The part about the food is very much true. The same thing is true for Turkish and Middle-Eastern food here in Germany and I very much enjoy it. An argument against it would be illegal immigration, human and drug trafficking, narco organizations, wage competition, wages without taxation and so on. On the other hand, you have great workers who value education for their kids, have good food, are sometimes lovely people, support the wobbly demographics and so on. I think we can all agree that your president and ICE are not a good solution for any of this though. It was never meant to be one.
Maybe but that specific reasoning is provably wrong, using actual crime statistics
The reasoning is that few immigrants - just like in the local population - will be committing criminal acts. I don’t think the crime statistics show that there are no criminal acts committed by immigrants as well. But maybe I have misunderstood you. What exactly is your point?
Crime statistics generally show immigrants charged for crimes at a same or lower rate than non-immigrants. There is no validity to the claim that immigrants cause crime.
Immigrants appear to be people, doing pretty much what people do, and maybe keeping their head down to avoid unwanted attention
Actually, there is, because you’ve misunderstood what I was saying. We’re kinda on the same page though. Immigrants WILL bring crime, because they’re just as likely as any other group of people to commit them. Now, the question whether they bring any crime at all is a totally different one than the question asking whether they are more or less likely to commit crimes (statistically) than the native population.
Which crime statistic? Immigration is a complex topic and the impact on crime statistics hugely depends on who immigrates into which country and who lives there.
If you ask left-leaning people to look at the historical immigration of European settlers to North America and the native population there, people will quickly say “Oh yeah, they were horrible! They came, raped, robbed and murdered the native population!”, but if you ask them how they see modern immigration, they will magically say that it’s all good and that all immigrants are good people and enrich the culture. Yet, those European settlers were immigrants as well (…). There is a huge bias towards how immigration is being seen there and it has something to do with the ideology you’re being taught while you grow up. As I have said, the truth is much more complex and harder to grasp. And you really have to look at the statistics, because some biasses turn out to be true - and others do not.
Some groups of immigrants may have a lower chance of committing crimes, others may have a higher chance of doing so.
In Germany for example, immigrants have a significantly higher crime rate than German citizens (https://de.statista.com/themen/13642/auslaenderkriminalitaet-in-deutschland/#topicOverview) and the ratio of immigrants to citizens in criminal convictions has been rising for the last 6 years (https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/223/umfrage/verurteilte-straftaeter-nach-nationalitaet/). There are many factors to consider here, like citizens more likely to report the police to the crime of an immigrant, immigrants living in poverty or destitute conditions (making it more likely for them to steal for example), less availability of lawyers and legal assistance and so on. People from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were much more likely to commit violent acts - including rape - for example (https://www.bpb.de/themen/innere-sicherheit/dossier-innere-sicherheit/301624/migration-und-kriminalitaet/). While immigrants from Georgia and the African countries were more likely to commit acts of fraud or thievery.
Things might look totally different for the USA, Brazil, Mexico and so on.
It’s factually true to say that immigrants always bring crime.
It’s factually false to say that immigrants always bring more crime than the native population.
It’s factually true to say that immigrants can commit more crime percentage-wise than the native population.
It’s factually true to say that immigrants can commit less crime percentage-wise than the native population.