"I know it's tough to 'not hate' these days . . . we get contaminados (contaminated). The hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love. So please, we need to be different. If we fight, we have to do it with love. We love our people, we love our family, and that's the way to do it. With love. Don't forget that, please." — Bad Bunny, 2026 Grammys (2/1/26)
Was it surprising that Bad Bunny—recording artist, cultural icon, Super Bowl halftime performer—gave an acceptance speech worthy of Dr. Martin Luther King upon winning his Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album? When his words about love recalled Dr. King's assertion that "love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend," I wiped away my tears. In a vacuum of moral leadership on the political front, artists and ordinary citizens step into the void to build scaffolding from hope.
Minneapolis and its people were nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last week for their coordinated work protecting and providing for their neighbors—a response so inspiring that the world took notice. Cities across the globe rallied in support last weekend, citizens standing for each other and against cruelty and lawlessness. Dr. King's words echo again: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."
Church leaders, professors, lawyers, and judges provide light when shadow threatens to swallow everything. The judge who ordered the release of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father from an ICE detention center in Texas listed two Bible verses at the bottom of his written decision. One was John 11:35, the shortest verse in Scripture: "Jesus wept." I'm reminded of another: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)
The contamination Bad Bunny describes is real—hate multiplying itself, spreading like contagion until we can barely recognize our own faces. But love remains more powerful, more contagious, more capable of transformation. Minneapolis proves this. Bad Bunny reminds us. And we must remember it, especially now, especially when hate seems easier than the hard work of loving our way forward.
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