Courtesy of Pro Football Network
For the first time in five football seasons, the words “End Racism” have not been stenciled on the field’s end zones. The phrase was replaced by “Choose Love” for this year’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.
The NFL has had a long history of racial bias and discriminatory practices, from underrating Black quarterbacks in the draft to denying Black candidates top jobs such as head coaching positions. In recent years, however, messaging from the NFL has changed.
In 2017, the NFL founded the Inspire Change initiative, a committee that joins players and owners to address social justice reform in four core areas: education, police and community relations, economic advancement and criminal justice reform, according to the NFL operations website.
Since its launch, Inspire Change has given over $300 million in grants to 501c(3) nonprofit organizations selected by a social justice working group. The New York Times points out, for comparison, that in the same period the total valuation of NFL teams increased by over $120 billion.
During the height of the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd, the league spoke out publicly against racism. Many companies looked to the NFL to take point on how to put diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices into policy, according to the New York Times.
In 2020, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell released a recorded video apologizing for past actions.
“We at the NFL condemn racism and the systematic oppression of Black people. We the National Football League admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier, and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest,” Goodell said.
This was a stark shift from the NFL’s response to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem in 2016, when team owners and Goodell himself described his peaceful protest as disrespectful.
It has been up for debate whether the 2020-era messaging reflected significant, meaningful change from the NFL. Now, coinciding with the start of Donald Trump’s second term as president, the NFL is removing one of the most broadly noticeable pieces of social justice messaging: the “End Racism” stencils from end zones.
While many critiqued the former message for being performative, the removal of a call to end racism nonetheless marks an alarming shift. In a Feb. 10 article, Forbes discussed the implications of replacing a message clearly condemning racism with a milder, vaguer one.
“Fans and consumers saw the ‘End Racism’ message, and could identify clearly and quickly what the NFL’s values were,” Forbes journalist Sonia Thompson wrote. “With the ‘Choose Love’ message, it is harder to do so.”
The NFL has denied that their decision to change the end zone tagline had anything to do with the politics of the new administration, though it is worth noting that Trump was in attendance at the Super Bowl, becoming the first U.S. president to attend one of the league championships. Regardless of intention, the change likely has the effect of appeasing Trump and his followers — who have been rapidly unraveling anti-discrimination policy and attacking DEI programs, as well as blaming DEI for the devastating wildfires in California, the fatal D.C. plane crash and other tragedies.
Considering this in conjunction with Elon Musk’s rampage against wokeness and the NFL’s renewal of its multiyear partnership with X — a company of which Musk is the primary owner — makes it difficult to view the unobjectionable “Choose Love” stencil as coincidental.
The NFL’s end zone change and its “downplaying (of) diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts after Trump criticized such initiatives,” according to NPR, aligns with historian Timothy Snyder’s concept of anticipatory obedience. Snyder posits that individuals and organizations anticipate what a government may demand and fall in line with it before it is ever required of them.
New York Times columnist Ezra Klein opines that Trump’s wave of executive orders is politically weak but meant to give the impression that his vision of the United States will inevitably become a reality. Major companies from Coca Cola to Disney to Amazon have already been rolling back their DEI practices to embrace a perceived future.
As New York Times Staff Writer Louisa Thomas writes, “Racism has ended! Have you heard? Or maybe ending racism has ended.”
Yet, there is still hope for a future where the NFL keeps moving forward with its efforts to do its part in ending racism. Goodell has expressed his continued commitment to DEI after the Super Bowl, and asserted that the league will not be changing its current DEI practices in response to the change in administration. It remains to be seen whether the NFL will follow through on these promises.
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