Last night, I watched the Super Bowl halftime show by myself from a hotel room overlooking mountains in southern West Virginia. My wife, Amy, called me from our faraway home after the kids were asleep to tell me that our 13-year-old rapped along every word to Kendrick Lamar鈥檚 halftime performance.
I am not like Kendrick. Not even close. Kendrick was raised in Compton, California, and experienced homelessness as a kid. He鈥檚 become a cultural icon, the most influential artist of a generation, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist. Kendrick is currently best known for the Grammy Award-winning and Super Bowl halftime finale song, 鈥淣ot Like Us.鈥� If you have been hiding from all forms of media since the song was released in May, 鈥淣ot Like Us鈥� originated in a rap 鈥渂eef鈥� but has since been adopted by people spanning ages, genders, races, ethnicities, incomes, etc, to speak to whatever 鈥淯s vs Them鈥� struggle resonates in their life. The song currently has more than 1 billion streams on Spotify鈥攁t least 100 of them into my son鈥檚 headphones.
Drew Harris, MD, FCCP
Editor in Chief, 糖心原创 Advocates
I know I鈥檓 not alone when I say that in 2025, we do not need an anthem that celebrates our divisions and differences.
In the last eight years, I have traveled in a beat-up Subaru the equivalent distance of three times the Earth鈥檚 circumference to care for rural Appalachian coal miners and their families. And I am well aware that there are plenty of differences between myself and my Appalachian patients. Cultural, economic, religious, political, dietary鈥ven our vehicles and hairstyles. It would be easy for a coal miner to say, 鈥淒r. Harris is 鈥楴ot Like Us.鈥欌�� Or vice versa.
But we choose not to do that. We find commonalities ranging from the typical (eg, family life, hard work, the outdoors, sports) to the unique (I鈥檝e lost count of the number of coal miners who, like me, have had a traumatic finger amputation).