I, for one, have found racism considerably less appealing since reading this sideways in endzones. Thanks NFL for making me not a bigot anymore. I think blacks are probably fine now.
Legit question. What happens if every single black player just REFUSES to play at the superbowl?
Like, lets say you get opening kickoff, and it's a white guy kicker. So he kicks the ball. It lands at about the 15 yard line. And just NOBODY even attempts anything. They all just stand there, pointing at the endzones.
And it's both teams. I don't know exact numbers, but I'd guess every teams roster is 90%+ black.
And since it's both teams, you can't call one side a forfeit.
I think they should. Embarass the NFL on the biggest stage. The game is Feb 9th. This would be the lead story Feb 10th. They either repaint it back onto the endzones DURING the game, reschedule the game, or the whole game is 0-0, with a clock running down for 3 hours.
Unfortunately, those players make so much money that it moves them into the big club that we ain't in. Not a lot of class/race solidarity there, from what I've seen...just solidarity with whatever gets them paid.
Which I guess makes sense. The sport itself is extremely predatory, preying on young, very poor (usually) black men, offering them the promise of wealth they wouldn't normally have access to—if they just sell their bodies and physical health to the wealthier white men who own them. So they work their asses off all through high school and college to hopefully have the chance at the NFL; joining the league literally becomes the culmination of their life's work.
If that's all that happens, I'm not sure how I'll feel about him going forward. Isn't he meant to be the thinking man's rapper? Kind of an educated leftist type? For him to accept a Superbowl halftime show and not be planning ANYTHING would make so much of his work and messaging become hollow to me.
On the other hand, idk what he would even do besides saying 'fuck Trump'. That would be the weakest, most watered down shit, but you're 100% right, that's the state of things.
Frankly I couldn’t tell you, but whatever the timeline is, I expect it will be much faster than before, as everything is.
There are a few very young politicians and new media commentators that know what’s up, and I think we should rally around them.
In the meantime, boycott as best as possible, build, develop and protect your community and funk up the authoritarian machinery at every turn possible.
No it wont. Normal people are tired of being preached to when they are at a football game of all places. Ironically sports were at the vanguard of improving race relations in the United States. There's something to be said for showing rather than telling.
Republicans won control of all 3 branches of government in 2004. In 2008, Obama swept into office with a filibuster-proof majority in senate and democratic house majority. It only lasted a few months but it was so wonderful to see Republicans tear into Bush and pretend they always hated him.
I feel like this is a great time to point out just how many of both teams playing in the Super Bowl are black (I didn't count them, but just take a look at their roster).
Interested to see how things play out. I'm hoping for protests on both teams when the game starts, but I'm worried what I'll get is a perfect example of why money is the root of all evil.
Call me a pessimist, call me a realist, idgaf. There's no way they aren't playing. Even though they all make more money than we would ever need in our lives in one year, they'll still bend the knee and lick boots for one more million.
I think the point is more that they are changing it to appease the great big orange convicted criminal who is currently gutting our government and destroying affirmative action in the name of "efficiency" with a literal Nazi at the helm of that effort.
But hey, it's only a nationally televised sporting event so who cares. 😒
Fuck the NFL. I honestly hope people torch the Superbowl over this and FuckwADUS attending like Nero in the colosseum.
Sadly it only happens on The Boondocks when the players went on strike to protest racial injustice and it forced political change. In reality the athletes liked money too much to support Kapernick or individually support BLM.
Responding to the collective movement of 2020 with endzone prints was a bad look. Removing them is an even worse look. It's like when google changed their slogan from "Don't be evil"
Yeah we all knew they were evil before, but when they stopped claiming to not be evil they got worse.
Well. This is that for the NFL. They did almost nothing to help their players and fans, and now they're doing even less.
More of a meta comment, but are all organisations stuck with their slogans forever?
NFL rotates these messages and this game it moves from "End racism" to "Choose love". Next it will rotate again and people will be upset they removed the "Choose love" slogan because they are anti-LGBT?
Google changes their motto from "Don't be evil" to "Do the right thing" and everyone is upset. One day they will change it again and everyone will be upset because of course they are not doing the right thing anymore?
Both NFL and Google are evil and deserve no sympathy, but I wonder what's the expectation here? Never change any slogan?
Making racists openly uncomfortable without changing their minds just makes them use dog-whistles, sneakier tactics, and play martyr; and when the ruling authorities (like the government, powerful corporations, world leaders) fuck up, racists can just take advantage of that. The great irony is that "End Racism" is doing everything but actually ending racism, because actually ending racism would be a threat to a lot of people in power, namely the police who rely on fear of Black people, mega-corporations who scapegoat Jews, countless corporations who rely on prison labor, ICE agents who'd be put out of a job if immigrants were welcomed in, and so on and so forth. Racists, from 2008 to 2024, were not foreign, dangerous wolves who needed to be shoved back into the forest. They were rich, well-respected, and relied on racism for their powerful position in society.
Most MAGA people I have been forced to listen to, say there is only racism against whites. "Racism can only be a supremacist view" (not simply I just hate/suspect members of a race because....) and so accusing America of being racist "can only be an anti-white racist view".
That NFL removes this, may, just may in the DEI advocate view, encourage whites to adopt supremacism instead of being angry that this "racism against whites" is the new NFL approved policy.
I think people are reading too much into this. They're changing it to 'Choose Love,' as an obvious shot at the orange-haired man who's never gotten a hug.
It also normalizes the idea by making it ever present. Even if people don't directly act on it, the message is there being presented as the normal thing society does. It pushes anti racism towards being an ambient condition by exerting a (slight) social pressure.
In addition to what others said it sparks discussion when some asshole in the friend group complains about it and hopefully gets torn into or excommunicated or otherwise corrected by their peers
The message isn't to stop people from being racist. It's to stop the racists from being part of their fanbase. Macho sports are really susceptible to concentrations of assholes and they need to be actively discouraged or they will take over.
The problem is that most "anti racism" campaigns are just low ganging "white men bad" bullshit. They don't actually tackle the source of racism or actually do anything to help minorities, since that would cost actual money.
So they just attack white men, which alienates working class people because they are getting fucked by the system just like the rest of us schmoes.
In reality it's another way to divide the working class against each other, because Cletus from Alabama is getting fucked just like Wayne from the Bronx, but they are both being pitted against each other by the ultra rich and mega corps.
The right latches onto the anger of Cletus and tells him it's all Wayne's fault the left rushes to the side of Wayne and tells him Cletus is a racist piece of shit that needs to be knocked down a peg.
Meanwhile, Chad is siphoning both their 401ks and laughing his ass off from his mansion.
Not everything has to be drenched in politics at all times. And doing so is not a crime, aside to those cultist people, whether they are on the right or the left.
Edit:
Wow. Some people here really want politics into everything.
Shocker: Not everyone wants that, 24/7.
That is how you alienate average people and why trump got elected.
Not because people are racist, as this sort of thing comes off as a cult. Despite the obvious good intentions. Can't be the only one that sees this. I mean, can't be, since the orange man won. And I say this as a non-American looking in.
You are missing the point, friend. Sometimes no politics, or messaging or virtue signaling is better or desired. I do need or want to end a video game stage with AE flashing a banner that reads, "Consume less corn syrup!" At all times. Despite the fact we all know that consuming it leads to obesity. Does that sound crazy to you? Or does everything, everywhere has to be covered in slogans?
Or do you honestly assume the vast majority people are retarded or evil that do not want to avoid racism without being having to be reminded of it 24/7? 'Cause despite the good intentions, that is how you annoy the hell out of people as it is both patronising and tiring. That is partly the reason why Trump got elected. Let's not make the problem worse.
Let sport be sport.
Do you think people need to be annoyed or reminded of this 24/7? Why not put, Eat more vegetables? Or, Water Great! Or, Chew your food before swallowing to prevent choking? Point is that as well meaning as they are, the constant, propaganda style messaging is annoying. And counterproductive, unless you think you are special and the only one who wants to be, you know, not racist. It comes off as patronising. I mean, you may disagree but I am sure this is a big reason why it is being removed.
Why do you not tattoo end racism on your forehead? You are not being political, you just want to remind people of something most people actively do not want to be. Do it. Take a photo of it. Unless you are a racist, because why would you not do it, otherwise?
I look forward to you posting a photo of your forehead.
You need to realize the privilege you have to say this. There is a mass erasure of people going on.
Acknowledging the world has issues, and active removal of that acknowledgement is not just fucking "politics." It's about humanity. It's about respecting people. It's about progress.
This is being done to appease the same fat shithead nazi who is scrubbing Trans from the government. Who is stoking fear into the lives of millions because of the ACTIVE effort to suppress them and their concerns.
And this isn't only a US issue. There's been a clear push towards fascism worldwide for a while.
You don't see that because you have some kind of privilege, or you just idiotically have your head in the sand.
Its a message that society won't accept racism. As in, if you are acting racist, you are a problem to society. Its the "only YOU can prevent forest fires". Its a call to personal action.
Removing that message from the field when it was there before does the reverse saying "Racism is a-okay!".
I hard disagree. It would be different if it said something like "black lives matter" but "end racism" is far to vague to be useful. People who are deliberately racist aren't going to stop and the people who are biased will just keep being biased since that's not racism in there minds.
I mean I am all for ending racism, but if we are being honest with ourselves the little "end racism" banner wasn't doing shit for race relations lol.
Spending time with people outside your bubble is always good even if it's uncomfortable at first. There are countless records of racist white guys joining the army and leaving with a different perspective on the different races. People raised by racists who then went and spent time being shot at and laughing next to people they had been told were somehow different than them simply because of their skin pigmentation. Many people came back from military service with friends of all nationalities.
Anyway the whole "End racism" banner feels a lot like the "gun free zone" signs. The people who are going to read the sign and listen to it are probably already following those instructions. The people who are going to ignore it and continue on their way weren't going to read it in the first place.
No one gesture or action can fix race relations. Just as racism is a societal problem that manifests itself in many ways from tiny things all the way up to awful explicit actions, societal change needs to happen in both large and small ways. Things like having an 'end racism' banner by itself doesn't do much, but it's part of a collective effort to show that society is changing and to remind people that we need to and are doing the work to tackle the issue.
The only thing racism needs to thrive in society is for it to be quietly tolerated. Removing this banner can be seen as a backslide in that direction.
I’d also argue that by removing it (especially at this time) you’re in fact doing the opposite—you’re now inciting racism because the racists will call it a win and take it as a sign that they’ve “won” or it’s acceptable now.