Ending [the fight against] Racism; The NFL's Participatory Obedience 2025
NPR's Code Switch reported on the NFL's decision to end their END RACISM campaign in 2025, the same year that President Trump is attending the game and also ending all DEI initiatives in the government. This concerns scholars who study democracy; Some democracy advocates worry that too many of our civic institutions are softening their postures toward Trump to avoid getting on his bad side, pointing to what the historian Timothy Snyder calls "anticipatory obedience:"
"Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."
The NFL introduced its “Inspire Change” platform in 2018, with end-zone slogans such as “End Racism,” “It Takes All of Us,” “Stop Hate,” “Choose Love,” and “Vote” becoming part of the league’s broader diversity and inclusion messaging in 2020, the Athletic reports. These changes were implemented in response to nationwide BLM protests following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The issue of racial injustice had been a talking point in the NFL since 2016, when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (For more on Colin Kaepernick see my 2017 post about it) began kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racism, sparking widespread debates.
And the END RACISM end zone message has been in the end zone since 2021 as an anti-racism response to the murder of George Floyd.
Kendrick Lamar's 2025 Halftime Performance, A Conflict Paradigm LensKendrick Lamar's performance showed that he was aware of the gravity of the moment in both Trump attending and the President's past history with the NFL and racism as well as the history of participatory obedience. Without a doubt, Lamar's performance was a commentary on racial justice in America through a lens of Marx's Conflict Paradigm. Lamar brought numerous inequalities and injustices to light throughout his performance.
Double Consciousness
As the show begins, Lamar launches into Squabble Up, a song BET explains, ...that speaks to the tension and resistance found in everyday Black life, Lamar immediately set the tone for the night.
That tone was
...confronting uncomfortable truths about race, power, and identity in America. His lyrics often serve as a mirror, forcing listeners to see the country for what it is—not the sanitized, revisionist version often presented in history books, but the raw, unfiltered reality of Black life in America.... At a time when diversity programs are being dismantled and affirmative action is being gutted, Lamar stood as proof that Black excellence does not require permission.
At a time when voter suppression is being enacted in states with large Black populations, Lamar’s performance was a call to action, reminding us that our voices—whether in music, sports, or the ballot box—cannot and will not be silenced....Lamar’s halftime show was a direct response to the times we live in. It was a performance rooted in history, shaped by struggle, and fueled by the unrelenting spirit of Black America.
For years, America has tried to erase us—from slavery to segregation, from redlining to mass incarceration, from voter suppression to attempts to erase Black history from the classroom. But history has shown, time and time again, that we are unerasable. You can cancel every program. You can roll back every policy. You can attempt to silence every voice. But you cannot erase us. Black people are America. Not just a part of it—not just contributors—but the very essence of what makes this country what it is.
And that last important point - that Black people are America despite the attempts to erase them from the culture exemplifies what W.E.B. Dubois called "Double Consciousness," or being forced to see yourself through two lenses - as a person who is both American and Black.
Beyond-say
During the first Trump administration, Beyonce performed at the Superbowl and faced backlash because her performance was too focused on social justice, too critical of American status quo; it was too black. The Journal of Black Studies published an essay about the criticism of the performance (see below) and about how Black artists are often pressured to sanitize their performances and personas for an America that refuses to come to terms with racism. In order to maintain their pop culture success, these artists are forced to live with Dubois' double consciousness as inhabiting an identity that is both a victim of racism and a neutral performer in the society that perpetuates the racism. In many ways Lamar's performance was attacking that that criticism.
Uncle Sam; A Structural Functional Symbol
Though the overall theme of the performance was addressing power and inequality through a lens of Conflict Paradigm, Lamar also brought attention to the inequality by critiquing, through structural functional analysis, the dysfunctional ways that society has broken apart - racially and politically. The performance included Uncle Sam(uel Jackson) explained by Screen Rant here. Uncle Sam represents America - or at least the structures within it that seek to control and profit off minority artists like Lamar. It's the NFL that bows to Trump by eliminating their call to End Racism; it's the media like Fox that seeks to sanitize performances like this halftime show; it's the law that is used to silence artists like Drake's lawsuit attempts to. Lamar attacks these structures so ingeniously by infiltrating them and being the performer that the structures gave the stage to.
“The revolution ’bout to be televised,” (a powerful reference to Gill Scott-Heron's song and message) Kendrick said before getting into GNX’s “squabble up,” adding, “You picked the right time but the wrong guy.” Later, Jackson as “Uncle Sam” scolded him, calling the performance “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto” and inquiring about whether Kendrick “really knew how to play the game” before imploring him to “tighten up!” The exchange echoed the hostility that Kendrick and so many other Black artists have experienced in the music industry and in this country more broadly. Lamar then transitioned into “Humble,” the lead single from his triple-platinum-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning Damn.
Then, it happened: As Uncle Sam started to tell Lamar that he was “almost there” and not to mess things up, the opening notes of “Not Like Us” started to play, and Kendrick dropped the following bars before giving the crowd the release that was included with the purchase of their Super Bowl ticket: “It’s a cultural divide, I’ma get it on the floor / 40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music / They tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence.” The lines call back to the third verse of “Not Like Us,” when Kendrick proffers a lesson about Atlanta’s history as a “Black Mecca” and the broader system that exploits Black culture.
Red Lining
Lamar subtly recreates redlining as his dancers in white are surrounded by an invisible wall tinted red by lights and red dancers around it.
He was defiant, proud, vindictive, playful and celebratory. He was pro-Black and subversive, trolling and joyful, and through all the expectations and fighting and nastiness, he was ultimately victorious. Lamar was aspirational, inviting us along with him.
Lamar is always pushing up against what it means to be Black and American. Which is why the very first thing we saw in his halftime performance was actor Samuel L. Jackson dressed as Uncle Sam narrating the showcase as well as a voice in Lamar’s head, telling him to play it safe and humble himself for America.
When Lamar opened the show with his homies hopping out of his Buick GNX, a metaphor for his neighborhood and homies invading Americana, he’s admonished by Uncle Sam to humble himself. And when Lamar and his dancers formed a human American flag on the field during his smash hit “Humble,” it was clear there was going to be a larger statement about the country when it needs a mirror the most.
Lamar wanted to deliver a message and a series of messages aimed directly at Black folks who are yearning for a place to rest our hearts. It’s what he has done so brilliantly in the midst of his feud with Drake. Part of Lamar’s attack on his Canadian nemesis has been positioning Drake as an extension of an establishment whose goal is to tear down Black folks. Yes, Drake is a colonizer according to Lamar, but it’s not just about that. It’s about getting rid of all colonizers. So when Lamar dropped his most powerful easter egg of the performance — Serena Williams — it was a wink to a particularly Black audience.
Williams has been the target of Drake and America at multiple times in her career. She’s been unfairly targeted for daring to be great, or, in Drake’s case, disinterested in a relationship. During the performance of “Not Like Us,” Williams danced on the field — a middle finger to Drake and timely reminder that Lamar defended her, and the culture, on the song. But if you recall, back in the 2012 Olympics, Williams celebrated her Gold medal by c-walking on the court. The move, an homage to her Compton roots and something Black folks had been doing for ages, became another opening for attack as far too many people accused her of being “ghetto” and too cocky for daring to shout out her hometown and rejoice in victory. Lamar gave Williams space to reclaim that dance as he was rapping about the ills of folks who don’t belong in the same universe as Black excellence trying to tell us what to do.
Lamar performed between the end zones where the slogan “End Racism” used to be. A few days before the Super Bowl, the NFL made the decision to remove the slogan, coinciding with a nationwide rebuke of DEI, where Black folks’ accomplishments are questioned as much as ever before. To perform at a halftime show for an organization like the NFL implies a tacit complicity in that type of empire, even in the face of raised Black fists at the 20-yard line. And for a certain sector of the audience, nothing Lamar says or does will erase that complicity.
Symbolic Interaction
As Dennis explains above, Lamar's message was "a message and a series of messages aimed directly at Black folks who are yearning for a place to rest our hearts." Lamar was singing to all of Black America validating them and saying that not only do you belong, but you are America and you cannot be erased. This shared meaning was woven throughout his choices of the performance:
- Having all black performers - including the American flag being literally made of Black people.
- Dropping Serena Williams into the performance - another successful black American who has faced criticism for being too 'ghetto'
- Through his set and Serena Williams appearance highlighting Compton, a city often denigrated as black and violent.
The dancers, dressed in red, white and blue, created formations that resembled the American flag. Times of India reported that at one point, Lamar himself stood at the center, seemingly dividing them, a visual metaphor for America's ongoing racial and political divisions.
The Daily Mail analyzes the meaning of the performance here:
At the top of his set, Kendrick, 37, appeared to make a dig at President Donald Trump, who was among the high-profile attendees in the crowd. Addressing the audience, Kendrick said: 'The revolution is about to be televised; You picked the right time but the wrong guy.' The multi-Grammy award-winner was of course referring to Gil Scott-Heron's acclaimed 1971 poem, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which speaks to the Black power movement of the 1960s. However, Kendrick's mention of the 'wrong guy' sent the internet into a frenzy, immediately leading them to believe he was referencing January's US Election.
Kendrick's back-up dancers were dressed in red, white and blue, in reference to the American flag. During the rapper's track Humble, they stood in formation on the stage making the flag much clearer to see. At first, the dancers were unified, but seconds into the track they divided in half with Kendrick standing in-between them. Some eagle-eyed audiences noted this and deduced that the group was split to show how the country is politically and culturally divided. Others noticed that all of Kendrick's dancers were Black, which was an apparent nod to America's history of slavery. 'Black folk representing the American flag because modern America was built on our labor… Kendrick I see you,' said one. Another wrote: 'Kendrick creating the American flag and then splitting it in half to symbolize the country's divineness... the amount of amazingly executed political symbolism in this one performance… I'm going to have to sit down with a notebook and pen.' A third said: 'Kendrick making the American flag out of black men was absolutely beautiful, and the message was clear. 'Black people built America, and the same people that he was embracing are now calling the performance boring.'
Ernest Owens at The Root says that Kendrick Lamar's halftime show was a coded indictment of the current state of affairs in America. ...the performance was an artistic statement about the current state of America as President Donald Trump (presumably) watched live. Having legendary actor Samuel L. Jackson dressed as Uncle Sam narrating the show (and serving as Lamar’s subconsciousness) was intentional. Having an all Black cast of dancers and performers dressed in red, white, and blue was also intentional....
During his set, parts of the Super Bowl crowd were lit up to formulate the sentence “WARNING WRONG WAY” – a symbolic message of where our nation is currently headed.In another sequence, the wide gap in between his background dancers (all dressed in either red, white, or blue jumpsuits) forming a disjointed American flag clearly implied a divided country.
All of this after the NFL itself decided to drop their “End Racism” banner on their end zones isn’t a coincidence.... The greatest rapper of our generation did it all: He put the nail in the coffin of an industry heavyweight and more importantly reminded the rest of America that the bigots currently occupying the White House are not like us.
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