NFL racism calls for halftime singers to boycott Super Bowl
Once again there is a flurry of outrage and media attention to the failure to hire Black head coaches in the National Football League. The class action suit brought by former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores brings to the foreground systemic racism of the billionaire owners of NFL teams. Why should we care? When Black leadership is denied in a system dominated by 70% Black players, then racism is exposed. There is no surprise then when the very thought of a Black woman on the Supreme Court raises the ire of many.
The NFL problem is not new. In 2003 the league instituted the Rooney Rule to increase the diversity among coaches and senior management positions. At that time there were three Black head coaches. Now there is one. There were nine head coaching vacancies at the end of this season. Seven positions have been filled, all with Whites except for Miami’s hiring of Mike McDaniel, who is biracial. Despite the persistence of this issue, no strong action has been taken. Just swept under the rug until the next hiring cycle. Once again the NFL wants to study, assess, research as if the problem is not known.
Rep. John Lewis once said, “My philosophy is very simple: When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to stand up, you have to say something, you have to do something. We need to get in good trouble.”
It is time for Jay Z, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige, and Kendrick Lamar to get into good trouble. It is time for other athletes, businesspeople, entertainers, and, yes, fans to join Flores’ strong desire for moral as well as ethical rectitude by standing up against systemic racism in the NFL. What better way to begin than to not perform at the Super Bowl. They would be putting their money and celebrity on the line to show that performing for a racist system is not acceptable.
Boycotts of sporting events and sponsors are not new. The most recent is the call for a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympic Games to protest “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity” of the Muslim population in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. Several western nations have joined that effort.
Fan boycotts are often launched after a players strike or owners lockout in baseball or football. Some fans declared that they were never going to watch the NFL after Colin Kaepernick took a knee. Others said they wouldn’t watch because of the way Kaepernick was treated. How much these actions affect the bottom line is uncertain. We do know that they call attention to a broader audience. We believe that we all have a voice and the power of the purse string (or credit card) to call out injustice.
There are numerous reasons to not like professional sports, particularly football: traumatic brain injuries, routine violence, treatment of players such as Kaepernick and manufactured false patriotism. Like it or not, the NFL is here and remains enormously popular.
Racism in whatever form and in whatever sector needs to be challenged and resisted. The fact that almost 20 years ago a rule was adopted to supposedly level the playing field and the situation is worse today is abysmal. At its best, eight Black coaches in 2017-2018 represented 25% of the head coaching positions. Today there are as many as there were when Fritz Pollard became a co-head coach in 1921. That’s 100 years, folks.
We hope and urge that those who would enable this system by performing or attending the Super Bowl send the strongest message possible: We are not your performers or your customers.