Ending” Stop Racism” signs that are “empirical” of the NFL’s “performative behavior”
A few days before last Sunday’s Super Bowl, a pair of French professors focused on what really was significant at American sport’s biggest function: cultural communication.
Before the name game, the National Football League had decided to ditch features of” Stop Racism” in the program’s close areas, the first time since 2021.
Instead of” Choose Love” and” It Takes All of Us,” the league took the place.
But for Brock University doctor Janelle Joseph, whose analysis is” situated at the intersection of Black Studies, Health Sciences and Sport Management to allow storytelling about unrestrained joy, abiding colonialism, and staunch resistance of racial peoples”, the move was “emblematic” of the NFL’s “performative actions” in the cultural justice realm.
According to Joseph,” While the NFL uses these phrases to sign a determination to racial justice, we must question whether these messages are supported by substantial steps, especially in areas like getting practices and the treatment of athletes,” 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 the elimination of the organizational structures that foster inequality in the league.
She added that half-timer Kendrick Lamar’s commitment to social justice would give the NFL a chance to “match his message with real action that goes beyond spectacle.”
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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”.
Ryan Clutterbuck, a fellow Brock Sports Management professor, lamented that the majority of NFL coaches and executives are still white despite the fact that the majority of the league’s players are “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 continued,” T]he true challenge is shifting the power dynamics that determine leadership opportunities in the sport.”
The Rooney Rule, which was inspired by former Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, “promotes diversity in leadership among NFL clubs to ensure promising candidates have the opportunity to demonstrate they have the necessary skills and qualifications to excel,” according to the NFL.
The rule was established in 2003 via its” Workplace Diversity Committee”, now known as the” DE I Committee”.
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IMAGES: Brian Hegseth/X, Brock U.
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