03/02/2026
This is truly magnificent ‼️. Share if you dare to be proud of this Boricua defending all immigrants abused by the fascist USA president and his followers.
"BAD BUNNY HATES THE UNITED STATES"
By Abimael Acosta
From the moment Bad Bunny stepped onto the stage at the 2026 Grammy Awards and firmly declared “ICE out”, the world stopped to listen. It was not a trendy phrase: it was a cry for human dignity and civil rights on a global stage. Before thanking God, his family, and his music, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio made it clear that “we are not savages, we are not animals, we are not aliens. We are human and we are Americans” and he said it with pride and love, also remembering those who have had to leave their land to pursue dreams or continue forward after great losses.
That historic moment was not only a cultural triumph. Bad Bunny became the first Spanish-speaking artist to win Album of the Year with Debí Tirar Más Fotos, something deeply symbolic for millions of Latinos and Puerto Ricans within the United States, but it was also a statement of empathy, humanity, and social justice from the heart of a musician who loves his people and understands the complexity of his nation.
However, there were those who responded with criticism and disdain. The president of the Puerto Rico Senate, Thomas Rivera Schatz, once again expressed his rejection of Bad Bunny in various public spaces and on social media, including direct comments at cultural events where he took the opportunity to minimize the artist’s impact in favor of more traditional figures and even questioned personal or artistic aspects of the singer.
Even more concerning is how some followers of the New Progressive Party on social media have repeated the narrative that Bad Bunny “hates the United States”, as if criticizing unjust policies were synonymous with unpatriotism. That narrative not only ignores the context of his message, defending the dignity of migrants within the same country of which he is a citizen, but also repeats a historical tactic to discredit voices that point out structural injustices.
In fact, this type of accusation has been used before against those who fought for civil rights and social justice in the United States, whose causes ultimately strengthened the nation by making it more equitable. Figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Angela Davis, Cesar Chávez, Harvey Milk, Jane Fonda, Rosa Parks, and more recently Colin Kaepernick were labeled as “hating the United States” for speaking out against racism, state violence, or systemic inequality. These accusations never reflected hatred of the country but rather demanded that the nation live up to its ideals of equality and justice.
It is deeply ironic to accuse someone of “hating the nation” when they are defending the most vulnerable and demanding changes to protect them. In reality, those who only seek to protect the powerful, trample their own people, and distribute privileges among the wealthy above the collective good are the ones who truly betray the essence of a nation. What is a country without its citizens? Nothing. You cannot hate a nation while defending its people; on the contrary, you love it when you fight for justice, equality, and dignity for all.
Bad Bunny, born in Puerto Rico, as a United States citizen, has every right to criticize what he considers unjust or abusive, just as civil rights defenders before him did. What he defended at the Grammys, lovingly and proudly, was not hate: it was love for his people and love for a nation that can still be better.
And here is a clear and direct message for Thomas Rivera Schatz and all those who repeat empty speeches on social media: do you know what it means to love a nation? Loving a nation is working for equal rights for all its citizens, fostering economic development that raises the well-being of its people, and providing pride and hope to the community that builds it. Bad Bunny has not only made music; he has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for Puerto Rico’s economy, contributing tangibly to the country they attempt to caricature. That is living patriotism, which honestly no government you have been part of for more than 25 years has been able to match in positive impact for the people.
Rivera Schatz, if you want to know what truly hates a nation, look at those like you who promote hatred and division among compatriots, who favor the elite with laws while leaving the majority behind, who award government contracts to friends and family without accountability, and who allow people involved in scandals like the Rosselló chat, where infamous comments were made such as “don’t we have some corpses to feed our crows?” or the offensive phrase “a Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans”, to currently hold multimillion-dollar state contracts in communications. That is hatred of a nation: systematic betrayal of your own people.
And while the PNP leadership needs to distract the country from the laws they want to pass against the people, from a poorly planned tax reform, through laws that endanger women’s autonomy, to measures that reduce access to public beaches for Puerto Ricans, they use Bad Bunny as a scapegoat, repeating their unfounded accusations of hatred toward the United States to divert attention, so people are entertained with that while they get away with their agenda with the public distracted.
This stale rhetoric no longer fools anyone. Loving a nation is loving and defending its people against inequality and injustice, not protecting the powerful, turning a blind eye to wrongdoing, and defending leaders above the collective well-being. Handing the nation over to billionaires while ignoring those who build it with their work, culture, and spirit, that is hatred of a nation.
Bad Bunny does not only love his homeland. He is making it stronger, more visible, and more dignified. Every time Rivera Schatz and the PNP followers want to repeat their empty speech, remember this: loving a nation is loving and protecting its people, fighting against inequality, defending justice, and honoring those who make the country possible with their work and spirit. Defending the interests of the wealthy, trampling citizens, and handing the nation to billionaires, that is hatred of a nation.
Thomas Rivera Schatz
Bad Bunny Bad Bunny