The NHL is undoubtedly navigating new terrain as they try to jump into the conversation about systemic racism in America. As a league, they’ve been silent for so long that their growing pains are embarrassingly evident.
So far, the league’s attempts have been about as interesting and effective as bland, corporate PR messaging can be. In their official statement commenting on the protests around George Floyd’s death, the league managed to say nothing of real value. Since then they’ve mounted a PR campaign on social media meant to highlight their new woke status. They’ve retweeted the good work a lot of players have been doing, they’ve even created some eye-catching art with the words of their players.
Until now, it’s been benign, performative stuff, but their recent video heaping praise on the Stars’ Tyler Seguin for attending a Black Lives Matter march in Dallas is downright offensive.
Listen. Learn.
Use your platform to encourage others to do the same. pic.twitter.com/PUHhKlPXQC
— NHL (@NHL) June 9, 2020
The video is some weird, low quality mash-up of still images and tweets that don’t talk about the issue of police brutality or center Black lives or even address racism in general. All the video does is….praise Tyler Seguin for showing up and marching?
“Look at Tyler Seguin, look at him!” one person glowingly tweeted. “This is a man!”
To be fair, Tyler Seguin did a good thing by putting his words into action and marching in the streets. His participation in the march seemed like a genuine reaction from a player taking the time to think and learn about issues of race.
What didn’t need to happen was a minute long canonization from the NHL, so eager to take the praise for one of their white players getting woke, that they totally missed why it would be wrong to center a white player during a time when we need to hear Black voices. Plus, the NHL has a history of disregarding players of color who have been fighting for equality this entire time.
In 2017, J.T. Brown, then with Tampa Bay, raised a fist in solidarity during the national anthem to show support for black lives and protest police brutality. The silence from the league and from white players was almost unanimous. Brown received death threats for showing solidarity with Black lives and the league was content to not show their support. The NHL wasn’t interested in doing a video showcasing what real strength and courage look like when it was a Black player doing the work, nor have they stepped up the countless times race has been an issue.
Now, the league wants to take a victory lap because one white guy decided that he needed to march?
The NHL isn’t interested in doing any of this hard work for themselves, instead they want to praise white players and feed off all the good will that generates.
This is what structural and institutional racism looks like, summed up in one tweet. When a white player protests against racial injustice, he gets a glowing video, hyping up what a great person he is. When a black player did it, the league was content to sit back and offer absolutley nothing.