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Why the George Floyd Protests Should be a Wake-Up Call for the NFL
The NFL has fallen far short in matters of race
The recent horrific murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police have touched off a rapidly wide-spreading wave of protests and outrage over ongoing systemic racism and violence against people of color in the United States. While our society continues to grapple with itself and largely refuses to learn and implement lessons from such tragedies, and work at being better, the same can be said when it comes to sports. In particular, the NFL, which has repeatedly fumbled on issues related to race, should take the current events as a serious wake-up call.
In the past few years, race has supplanted concussions as the most prevalent topic in professional football. The unofficial blackballing of quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who made huge headlines for kneeling during the national anthem in silent protest against police violence, has not played a snap since the end of the 2016 season. Of course, the league didn’t go so far as to officially ban the signal caller, but the fact he has remained unsigned these last few years is a silent indictment of the way the NFL does business when it comes to race.
Kaepernick became a polarizing figure because of his advocacy, and by proxy, a frequent target of…
