Like a Prayer (song) that multiple times in history, black men have been punished for kissing or desiring white women. Grant believed this was where the racial equality message of the video came across as most poignant. On the contrary, when the curtain falls and the scene shifts to a smiling Madonna among the burning crosses, professor Maury Dean felt that another explanation was inevitable. Madonna portrays a successful heroine and thus the whole video becomes about female empowerment. The first live performance of "Like a Prayer" was on the 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. She sang it wearing a dress that looked like
Like a Prayer (song) 20 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart. "Like a Prayer" was ranked at number 25 on the 1989 Hot 100 year-end chart, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in May 1989, for shipment of a million copies of the single. According to Nielsen SoundScan, it has also sold 1.1 million digital downloads as of December 2016. In Canada, the song reached the top of the "RPM" Singles Chart in its ninth week. It was present on the chart for 16 weeks and was the top-selling single in Canada for 1989. In Australia, "Like a