What if Black men stopped playing in the NFL?
- Kennedy-Xpressway
- Mar 27, 2017
- 3 min read
A Rolling Stone article titled "What Colin Kaepernick's National Anthem Protest Tells Us About America" tells us the intriguing statistic that, "while black men only make up 6% of the American population, they comprise a staggering 70% of NFL rosters".
Over the course of this semester I have been involved in undergraduate research about the US National Anthem and protest against it specifically relating to NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his protest about police brutality. Kaepernick decided that since American did not want to value Black lives that he would not stand during the Star Spangled Banner at football games and instead kneel. There was outrage across the country when he did this. Many NFL fans and others were more angered at the fact that Kaepernick did not stand for their beloved Star Spangled Banner than the fact that unarmed Black men and women are being killed by police frequently. Since Kaepernicks protest, Kaepernick remains an player unsigned with any NFL team while most of his peers have a home team. The Rolling Stone article goes on to state, "The majority of NFL players are black, while the NFL fan base is 83% white and 64% male". After hearing this stat, the first question that came to mind was "what would happen if Black men stopped playing in the NFL".
It is not enough for Black people to stop supporting the NFL, Black people must stop participating in the NFL and other sports organizations that profit off our bodies in order for our voices to truly be heard. The National Football League is another product of our capitalist society's need for entertainment. It represents everything that is traditionally masculine in America. While players make millions every year, its purpose is to use Black bodies as entertainment to profit off of. Think about it, Super Bowl commercials, advertisements, jerseys and other team products, owners of teams and higher up executives profit from the labor of Black men on the field. Since it seems the NFL is dependent on Black men to line their pockets, the NFL would have to work harder to recruit players if Black men quit the NFL.
Black people have been over sexualized since before slavery. Stereotyped as the buck, and Black male rapist, there is an increased desire to see Black men playing football because of this over sexualization. These people are aroused by seeing big Black men running across the field and throwing the ball. What they really get a kick out of is seeing all that tattooed melanin running back and forth across their screens. If Black men disappeared, so would the people who consume NFL football as a fetish. If there are no profits that executives are seeing and there are no viewers, there is no NFL. The NFL would quickly be a thing of the past. Black men are the backbone of the NFL and those in power over them know it. Black men hold so much power in this space because they are the reason this league has stayed alive for as long as it has.
This hypothetical question will probably stay just that, hypothetical. Not every Black NFL player has a revolutionary mindset like Colin Kaepernick and some people of color even oppose his stance. BUT it is still important for people like Kaepernick to protest and speak out against these injustices. His platform as an NFL player was the perfect way to draw the type of attention he wanted and got. He got people who didn't even agree with him to think about what he is saying. If he can get people to simply think about why he is protesting, thats one step closer toward liberation.
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