Hands. Dozens—reaching up, hands high, reaching together—midair, mid-trust, mid-hope.
At the Super Bowl, it wasn’t about the score. It wasn’t the teams. It was a moment during the halftime show when Bad Bunny turned his back, leapt into the unknown, and believed—without hesitation—that someone would catch him. I don’t have the faith that. Somehow, I’d love to find it again.
Hands. Hands. Hands
Like many of you, I got ready for Super Bowl Sunday. I wasn’t particularly invested in either team—though, fine, go Seattle. Super Bowl LX, played on February 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, gave us a familiar matchup: a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. The Seahawks won decisively, 29–13. But I’m not here for the game.
I’m here for the halftime show.
In a previous essay, I talked about what I half-jokingly call the Kendrick Bowl (and the Beyoncé Bowl)—those halftime performances that feel less like entertainment and more like cultural moments, collective storytelling events we prepare ourselves to receive. We tune in expecting meaning. We expect to be told something about who we are.
Bad Bunny delivered exactly that.
As the solo headliner of the Super Bowl LX halftime show, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio made history with an almost entirely Spanish-language set—the first of its kind on this stage. The 13-minute performance was unapologetically Latin, deeply Puerto Rican, and expansively American. With guest appearances from artists like Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, Karol G, and Cardi B, the show pulsed with energy and intention. It honored elders and entrepreneurs, community and culture, sugarcane and sweat—the histories on which this nation, and particularly the Caribbean, were built. The theme might as well have been spelled out in lights: Together We Are America.
But that’s not why I’m writing today.
I’m writing because of a single image—a still photograph taken during the performance—that I will not soon forget.
At one point, Bad Bunny turns his back to the stage and vaults into the air, committing fully to a trust fall. There is no visible harness. No safety net. Just the assumption—no, the certainty—that he will be caught. The photograph captures him midair, body arched, while dozens of hands reach up toward him. Many hands. Many skin tones. All extended in the same direction, united by purpose: we will not let you fall.
It is a breathtaking image.
Ishika Samant’s Getty photograph freezes that moment of collective trust and shared responsibility. It is not about celebrity. It is about belief. And when I saw it, I felt something click into place.
At first, I thought of 2020—the flood of performative black squares, the hollow gestures of solidarity that required nothing and risked nothing. But no, this image goes further back. Much further.
It took me to November 4, 2008.
The New York Times ran a photograph by Doug Mills of supporters of Senator Barack Obama cheering at a rally in Chicago as news broke that he had won Pennsylvania. Hands raised. Faces lit with hope. That night, as Adam Nagourney wrote, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, “sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics.”
Welp. That didn’t last.
Yet, the photo still exists. The image of hands raised high—reaching, open, expectant. It’s hopeful.
Hope, that’s what the Bad Bunny photograph reminded me of: that version of America, diverse and unfinished, but leaning forward together.
That moment in 2008, or 2026, seems a distant dream.
Leaders chuckle at racist cartoons. Organizations kill Americans because they dared to protect a brother or a sister. Young folks question the American dream and if they’ll be able to afford half the things their parents did. Millions of people don’t know if they will ever be able to retire, because the economy many voted for has stripped them of their dignity and security, and quietly tells us what many of us already suspected—that in the eyes of the state, you are disposable, especially if you are not part of the vaulted class chosen to run industries, sit on boards, or make lists.
I don’t like that picture of America. It’s hollow. It’s performative. It’s as empty as a black square aka 2020 on Instagram.
I want a hopeful America again. I want the shining city on a hill—not the slogan, but the promise behind it. I want to believe that yes we can find unity and forgive division.
Lately, when I talk about Fire Sword and Sea, I use the metaphor of a pirate ship as a meritocracy. Stay with me. Yes, pirates stole other people’s things, and by today’s standards that’s somewhat illegal. In the 1600s, it was disturbingly legal.
A pirate crew survived because . everyone worked toward a common goal. Picture it: Africans, Europeans, Indigenous people, people from across the Caribbean—the very nations Bad Bunny called out in his performance—thrown together with a dream to win. On that ship, you voted. You were equals. No one asked who you were or who you loved. They asked: Can you rig the sails? Can you scrub barnacles? When the fighting starts and you’ve got a rapier or a sword in your hand, can I trust you to strike the enemy and not stab me in the back?
That’s it. Contribution. Trust. Shared survival.
So when I look at that Super Bowl photograph—Bad Bunny suspended midair, many hands reaching up—I want that America again. I want the America of 2008, when people didn’t hate again, so openly or so loudly.
Oh, what a time that was.
And what we see now is how fragile those moments are—how quickly they can erode. Division waits patiently for fear, resentment, and weak thinking to give it an opening.
Division takes root. It’s loathed to let go. It would never trust and dive into outstretched hands, diverse hands, hands with color.
So I want to thank the Super Bowl. I want to thank everyone who stood up during Bad Bunny’s performance and danced, who took in the imagery of Puerto Rico and its rich history, as well as all our neighbors to the south, in the Caribbean—the Americas as a shared, complicated whole.
For a brief moment, we saw unity on that stage, and it was beautiful. I don’t know how we get back there.
I just hope, we do.
This week’s booklist includes unify titles like:
Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson
Set across postwar Germany and the United States, this novel explores abandoned mixed-race children, chosen family, and how love and responsibility can reshape lives history tried to discard.
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
A novel that examines how love and trust are tested by systems that refuse to see certain Americans as fully human.
There There by Tommy Orange
A powerful chorus of voices that explores Native identity, belonging, and what it means to gather, hope, and be seen in modern America.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
A reflection on reciprocity, care, and collective survival, offering a vision of community rooted in responsibility rather than dominance.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Through lyrical vignettes, a young girl navigates identity, language, and belonging within a Latinx community shaped by migration and memory.
Puerto Rico: A National History by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo
A people-centered history that reframes Puerto Rico through resistance, labor, and collective struggle rather than colonial myth.
Fire Sword and Sea — Vanessa Riley
A sweeping historical novel that exposes pirates, sisterhood, and survival in the chaotic and diverse 17th-century (1600s) Caribbean.
This week I’m highlighting East City Bookshop.
Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from East City Bookshop or from one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are hanging with me.
Come on, my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s keep everyone excited about Fire Sword and Sea.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.
Let’s keep rising and creating together. Please like, subscribe, and share the podcast. And stay connected to Write of Passage.
Thank you for listening. I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
Author Talks presents Vanessa Riley, Fire Sword and Sea: One of the best happening Lit/Bookish Scenes in Atlanta is Author Talks – Music, Crafted Cocktails, Tapas, and Great Conversation about Pirates and Resistance! Don’t miss it.
Friday, Feb 20 from 7 pm to 9 pm EST
Register:
44th & 3rd BooksellerAtlanta, GA
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe
