“Choose love” is a terrible slogan when the agenda requires perpetuating the perception that racism is a problem in America. We can’t have a positive slogan in the end zone. We must have a divisive slogan that alerts those who watch the NFL to the need to suggest that there are racists among them.
As for myself, I won’t watch the Super Bowl because the sport is corrupt, the championship game engineered. However, ideally, there should be no slogans. The NFL should not assign to itself the role of moral entrepreneur. But if any slogan is to appear, hats off to the programmers who decided to promote a positive one rather than one that recalls the mass hysteria of 2020, a moral panic that led to cities being wrecked, law enforcement being Fergusoned, and citizens being intimidated and, in numerous instances, injured and even murdered. The NFL played a major role in this.
But don’t fret, those who wish to keep alive the divisive message. Snoop Dog and Tom Brady have teamed up for a Super Bowl commercial to [hashtag] “Stand Up to All Hate.” I suppose they could have promoted the slogan “Choose love,” but since the NFL will paint that slogan in the end zones, that would be redundant. Here we get the yin and yang of the ideology. After all, we can’t assume that people know that love is good and hate is bad. (Is love always good? Is hate always bad? That’s another conversation.)
What is a “moral entrepreneur”? This is a term we use in sociology to refer to power actors who work to influence or create laws, policies, and social norms based on their moral values or beliefs. These entrepreneurs actively campaign for certain behaviors to be defined as acceptable or deviant, often with the goal of protecting what they consider the greater good of society, an endeavor that often involves manufacturing evil. The moral entrepreneur challenges existing norms and create new ones by pushing for change on issues like social justice. Moral entrepreneurs use their influence and resources—in a word power, derived from wealth—to shape public opinion and public policy, attempting to transform societal values in line with their agenda, which is dressed in the language of ethics and morality.
freedom and reason 