The National Football League has joined the list of professional sports leagues which have decided to bow to pressure from race-baiting left-wing activists. On Monday, the league informed its 32 teams that the messages “End Racism” and “It Takes All of Us” will be stenciled on the end-zone borders of all stadiums for season-opening games.
According to a memo obtained by ESPN, the league claims that the messages show “how football and the NFL brings people together to work as one and use our example and our actions to help conquer racism.”
In a Tuesday conference call, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, “The NFL stands with the Black community, the players clubs and fans confronting systemic racism…. We will not relent in our work.”
The NFL already announced in July that it will break with tradition and play the song “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” — also referred to as “The Black National Anthem” — prior to week-one games in every stadium. The song is to be play preceding “The Star Spangled Banner.”
According to the most recent memo, the league has “engaged the James Weldon Johnson Foundation [James Weldon Johnson is the song’s author] and the NAACP to work with us to inform and educate fans about the historical significance of the song during the weeks leading up to kickoff, and will utilize the NFL’s owned and operated channels to share as broadly as possible.”
The memo also announced that it will again break with tradition and allow individual players to wear helmet decals honoring a victim of so-called systemic racism.
“Each player will have the option to honor an individual by displaying that person’s name via a decal on the back of their helmet,” the memo reportedly stated. “Players will be offered a list of names and short biographical information to help guide their decision-making, however, they can also select a victim of systemic racism who is not represented on this list.”
Should coaches or officials wish to honor such a “victim,” they may display a patch on their hat with the name of that person.
In addition, a tee-shirt designed by NFL Players Association executive committee member Michael Thomas of the Houston Texans may be worn during warm ups. On the front, the shirt reads, “Injustice against one of us is injustice against all of us.” On the back it reads, “End racism.”
As with the NBA, players will be allowed to emblazon the back of their jerseys with either the name of a victim of so-called systemic racism or one of the following approved social-justice slogans: “Black Lives Matter,” “Stop Hate,” “It Takes All of Us,” or “End Racism.”
The league will also honor essential workers who are working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic with an on-field message of thanks. “Featured on each club’s seat covering between the 30 yard lines, there will be a message thanking these front line workers,” the memo said.
In their decision to use their fields and players as social-justice commercials, the NFL joins the NBA and WNBA, which have painted “Black Lives Matter” on their courts as they compete in their “bubble” format. They also join Major League Baseball, which allowed “BLM” to be stamped on all pitchers’ mounds for opening day as well as endorsing kneeling for the National Anthem.
In case you missed it — and many have just stopped paying any attention to professional sports — the league’s training camps have already started. In the wake of the shooting of non-compliant sexual-assault suspect Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, nine teams — the Green Bay Packers, Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts, Los Angeles Chargers, New York Jets, Tennessee Titans, and the Washington Football Team (formerly known as the Redskins) — all chose to boycott practice due to alleged player distress over the shooting.
It’s just more highly pampered millionaire athletes wanting even more attention by acting oh-so-appalled by situations that they clearly don’t know anything about.
The NFL would do well to look at the disastrous television ratings that the other leagues have suffered due to their anti-police political posturing. NBA ratings are down 40 percent, and the MLB is also seeing a decline in viewership.
People don’t like to be lectured about social justice by preening athletes with multi-million dollar contracts. As the NFL has been the dominant professional sports league in America for many decades, league officials and players may think they’re immune to viewer backlash — but they’re not.
Image: Dmytro Aksonov/iStock/Getty Images Plus
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects. He can be reached at [email protected].
