Doing away with ‘End Racism’ signs ’emblematic’ of NFL’s ‘performative actions’
A few days before last Sunday’s Super Bowl, a pair of Canadian professors focused on what really was important at American football’s biggest event: racial messaging.
Before the title game, the National Football League had decided to ditch displays of “End Racism” in the field’s end zones, the first time since 2021.
In its place the league went with “Choose Love” and “It Takes All of Us.”
But for Brock University professor Janelle Joseph, whose research is “situated at the intersection of Black Studies, Health Sciences and Sport Management to enable storytelling about uninhibited joy, abiding colonialism, and steadfast resistance of racialized peoples,” the move was “emblematic” of the NFL’s “performative actions” in the social justice realm.
“While the NFL uses these slogans to signal a commitment to racial justice, we must ask whether these messages are backed by meaningful actions, especially in areas like hiring practices and the treatment of athletes,” Joseph said according to The Brock News.
Joseph (pictured), founder of the University of Toronto’s IDEAS Research Lab which “explores issues of Indigeneity, diaspora, equity and anti-racism in sport,” said “true change requires more than just shifting symbols. It requires dismantling the systems that perpetuate inequality within the league.”
She added that halftime performer Kendrick Lamar’s commitment to social justice would give the NFL a chance to “match his message with real action that goes beyond spectacle.”
MORE: Science journal retracts Brock professor’s article that criticized diversity hiring
According to her faculty page, Joseph’s journal articles include “Listen, Tell, Show: Recreation and the Black and Decolonial Storytelling in Sport and Physical Culture Research,” “Whiteness, Canadian university athletic administration, and anti-racism leadership: ‘A bunch of white haired, white dudes in the back rooms,’” and “Mind your business and leave my rolls alone: A Case study of fat Black women runners’ decolonial resistance.”
Fellow Brock Sports Management professor Ryan Clutterbuck lamented that most NFL coaches and executives are still white despite the majority of the league’s players being “people of color.”
“Despite the Rooney Rule, minority hiring stagnates,” Clutterbuck said. “In the latest coaching cycle, only one of six hires was a minority, revealing the gap between rhetoric and action.”
He added “[T]he true challenge is shifting the power dynamics that determine leadership opportunities in the sport.”
According to the NFL, the Rooney Rule (named after former Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney) “promotes diverse leadership among NFL clubs to ensure that promising candidates have the opportunity to prove they have the necessary skills and qualifications to excel.”
The rule was established in 2003 via its “Workplace Diversity Committee,” now known as the “DEI Committee.”
IMAGES: Brian Hegseth/X; Brock U.
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