General Well done the players

[SteMerritt]

This is the UK, not America!

 

[m]

This is the UK, not America!

So why behave like America and pretend the outside world doesn't exist?

 

[ttg17]

The way we have 'taken the knee' in this county has been wrong, It was initially a protest against the US government by black sportsmen and gained popularity after the George Floyd killing. When the national anthem was played instead of standing as is the custom they chose to kneel in a show of defiance to the government who they regarded as institutionally racist. To kneel at the start of a football match when no anthem is being played changes the context of the gesture and has led to confusion. People see the act of kneeling as one of deferrence as someone would show to the queen for instance so when it was first performed some misconstrued it as kneeling in deferrence to the Black Lives Matter movement who came to prominence in this country after the Floyd killing. I believe we should have adopted a less ambiguous symbol in this country to show commitment to the anti racist cause and not adopted a gesture and changed it's meaning by using it out of its original context

I think you've got this bit the wrong way round. 'Taking the knee' as a form of protest and symbol against racial oppression has been around for literally centuries. Famously Martin Luther King knelt in prayer in a simple gesture of defiance, of course, but even in this country, this image of a slave kneeling became a symbol of the British abolitionist movement in the 19th century. The gesture didn't rise to prominence over the last 18 months because of Kaepernick; rather, one of the reasons Kaepernick knelt was because of the historic prominence of the gesture. In the same way, the Premier League players decided to adopt the gesture, not because of Kaepernick, but because of its historic symbolism. The deliberate way the simple meaning behind the gesture has been wilfully misinterpreted and muddied by those uncomfortable with the subject matter in this country has been predictable but disheartening.

For the record I don't have any problem with players choosing not to kneel. I trust they have given it thought and could explain their reasons for kneeling / not kneeling if asked (not that any of us have any right to ask them). I thought Zaha spoke very well on the subject in that podcast he did. But it's important to note that his stance was a hell of a lot more nuanced and principled than, "I'm not kneeling because I don't want to show deference to that Marxist Black Lives Matter group."

 

[cassox]

No kneeling again by the players.....WELL DONE

 

[brassmonkey]

Loads of teams have stopped kneeling before matches now.

 

[beyondthefourth]

No kneeling again by the players.....WELL DONE [emoji122][emoji122][emoji122][emoji122][emoji122][emoji122][emoji122][emoji122]

I knelt in my living room, in full Oxford kit, just to be the the last resistance against your unfounded fury.

 

[cassox]

Loads of teams have stopped kneeling before matches

Loads??? dont think so.....but my team has and thats all i care about.