Sports persons taking the knee

[Deleted member 16999]

I don't have a problem with this at all, and it is correct that Kapernick took up the fight (at huge personal cost) by making a peaceful protest, that was hideously misrepresented by many in the states.

What I can live without is this now being a part of every single game of football to the point that it becomes routine and meaningless.

It should be done as part of a specific week or date, focussing on racial injustice and ideally should be included with meaningful action, community involvement, donation to certain groups or charities etc.

In my view, having it at the start of every game just waters down the protest to the point that people won't even notice it's happening or recognise what it's for.

It's a bit like wearing a poppy. People don't necessarily wear the poppy because they specifically want to commemorate the fallen, it's just something that's accepted and expected of them to the point that it's barely even recognised as an action of any consequence.

The inconvenience this is causing you must be keeping you awake at night.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

View attachment 33890

Beyond Taking the knee, there are other things teams have adopted.. At the recent Australia v India T20, the Aussies came out in Indigenous Kit. It was not till the early 70s that the indigenous people even got a right to vote.. and they still form a relative minority in main stream australia. So all points to Aussie men and women cricket to make the guesture... more details here >> https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/54915878

As much as many in the UK seem to think that the Aussies are 'just like us' I am not so sure - or maybe we are... Certainly, and despite much effort by federal and state government; local authorities, and many Australians, especially since the 1967 referendum, there still seems to be a significant element of racial prejudice towards the indigenous Aboriginal community...we found sad, and at times uncomfortable, what we saw.

 

[Mudball]

The inconvenience this is causing you must be keeping you awake at night.

is the past tense of awake.. a-woke?.. asking for a friend

 

[Mudball]

I travelled with a colleague of Indian descent in the US a few years ago, we had a flight in, 3 internal flights, then home. After the first airport security stop, we then agreed I would wait for him at the exit of the airports
The way in which he was treated so differently to me was a real eye-opener. He said it was his 'normal' when in the US... It was an experience for me!

| see it plenty of times, so no surprises.. I had an Indian friend, he would deliberately skip the queue and head to secondary screening. The TSA would chase him away and ask him to go to regular queue.. once he would get to the head of the queue, they would 'randomly select' him for secondary screening. The look on the TSA's face was worth the plane ticket

Having said that, i (used to0 fly extensively in Europe... never had a similar incident (so far).

 

[SteveJay]

That's how it may be to you but certainly, it can be clearly seen that 'Taking the Knee' means an awful lot more to the black players & their team mates. I can only 'shake my head' in disbelief at the issue this is causing some people. Just treat it like when our players are 'forced' to sing the national anthem rather than just stand to it..... simply mute/turn away/turn off...... it's that easy.

What a ridiculous comparison

 

[Grant85]

The inconvenience this is causing you must be keeping you awake at night.

Nothing to do with the inconvenience, just feel it's not the best use of the platform for an issue of such importance.

Makes it very easy for people to 'play to the gallery' without actually effecting much change.

 

[Mudball]

Nothing to do with the inconvenience, just feel it's not the best use of the platform for an issue of such importance.

Makes it very easy for people to 'play to the gallery' without actually effecting much change.

I partially agree to some of the sentiments. However even if 1 child watching the match turns around and ask his parents ‘why are they doing it?’ Or ‘what is that?’ then I would say it was worth the effort.

We have years of kick it out, but not much has changed. The very visual of what happened at Millwall has sparked a debate.

The final bit is that kids will replicate what they their stars do on telly. One of these days I won’t be surprised that they will do something like this in an U-15 match.

 

[Deleted member 16999]

Nothing to do with the inconvenience, just feel it's not the best use of the platform for an issue of such importance.

Makes it very easy for people to 'play to the gallery' without actually effecting much change.

Surely for keeping it in the public eye it’s THE BEST PLATFORM, every PL game is shown live on TV and it is shown before every game, viewing figures wise it’s publicity you couldn’t buy!

 

[2blue]

What a ridiculous comparison

Time you had a reality check...... anti-racism for most of us is an important issue to keep live.

 

[SteveJay]

Time you had a reality check...... anti-racism for most of us is an important issue to keep live.

And i agree it is, via initiatives like Kick It Out, dealing with all racism, not just against a certain ethnic race. I don't think playing a national anthem before an international match, seen as the pinnacle of most players careers, representing their country, is comparable with a gesture that is losing public support and has all sorts of connotations being linked to a political movement and one that has developed violent tendencies.
But then again maybe you think defacing statues and burning the union jack acceptable. Have a look at the sentiment on social media indicating people are tired of having the knee thrust down their throats by the Tv and media and then maybe you can have the reality check.

 

[2blue]

And i agree it is, via initiatives like Kick It Out, dealing with all racism, not just against a certain ethnic race. I don't think playing a national anthem before an international match, seen as the pinnacle of most players careers, representing their country, is comparable with a gesture that is losing public support and has all sorts of connotations being linked to a political movement and one that has developed violent tendencies.
But then again maybe you think defacing statues and burning the union jack acceptable. Have a look at the sentiment on social media indicating people are tired of having the knee thrust down their throats by the Tv and media and then maybe you can have the reality check.

Mmmmmmmm..........

 

[Old Skier]

I wonder what the reason was that sports people didn’t come out in solidarity with

Colin Kaepernick

Over three years ago.

Football and footballers for years have had a platform to make a stand against racism/homophobia and many other issues.

Got to laugh when at some matches, ref blows whistle, and three or four players “forget” the obligatory kneel and think it’s the start of play.

 

[sunshine]

And i agree it is, via initiatives like Kick It Out, dealing with all racism, not just against a certain ethnic race. I don't think playing a national anthem before an international match, seen as the pinnacle of most players careers, representing their country, is comparable with a gesture that is losing public support and has all sorts of connotations being linked to a political movement and one that has developed violent tendencies.
But then again maybe you think defacing statues and burning the union jack acceptable. Have a look at the sentiment on social media indicating people are tired of having the knee thrust down their throats by the Tv and media and then maybe you can have the reality check.

Firstly, you don't have to link this to a minor fringe political movement. I don't. There's always someone looking to jump on a bandwagon for their own benefit.

Secondly, the negative sentiment on social media reflects your sphere of influence. I can't see people tiring of this, but then none of my facebook friends are members of the EDL (not saying yours are).

Thirdly, "having the knee thrust down their throats" is probably the most inappropriate idiom imaginable, unless this was intended as a witty pun.

 

[sunshine]

I wonder what the reason was that sports people didn’t come out in solidarity with

Colin Kaepernick

Over three years ago.

Football and footballers for years have had a platform to make a stand against racism/homophobia and many other issues.

Got to laugh when at some matches, ref blows whistle, and three or four players “forget” the obligatory kneel and think it’s the start of play.

I suspect the reason was fear.

Fear of becoming a target for certain fans, rocking the boat and causing controversy, and ultimately losing lucrative sponsorship contracts.

90% of sports stars say nothing of any interest. They are too worried about negative PR and play it too safe. They have a short career with a small window when they are on top of their game so I understand why they don't want to rock the boat. It's a shame because when sports stars choose to use their voice it can be really powerful (e.g. Marcus Rashford recently).

 

[Old Skier]

I suspect the reason was fear.

Fear of becoming a target for certain fans, rocking the boat and causing controversy, and ultimately losing lucrative sponsorship contracts.

90% of sports stars say nothing of any interest. They are too worried about negative PR and play it too safe. They have a short career with a small window when they are on top of their game so I understand why they don't want to rock the boat. It's a shame because when sports stars choose to use their voice it can be really powerful (e.g. Marcus Rashford recently).

And I think “not taking the knee” is based on exactly this now.

 

[Mudball]

And i agree it is, via initiatives like Kick It Out, dealing with all racism, not just against a certain ethnic race. I don't think playing a national anthem before an international match, seen as the pinnacle of most players careers, representing their country, is comparable with a gesture that is losing public support and has all sorts of connotations being linked to a political movement and one that has developed violent tendencies.
But then again maybe you think defacing statues and burning the union jack acceptable. Have a look at the sentiment on social media indicating people are tired of having the knee thrust down their throats by the Tv and media and then maybe you can have the reality check.

Again i understand some of the sentiments in ur post, but i see you have lumped a lot of things together into one movement.. So allow me to unpick some. I dont pretend to know the answers, but these are my views. I am sure there are other views out there and hence we can have a healthy debate

1) BLM = political movement... not as it started.. There are always going to some idiot who does stupid things that tarnish everything else. This is similar to saying 'Are all Brexiteers racist and Daily Mail readers?' No not at all - at least not the ones that i know and work with. But the media choses to talk about what sells. So dont paint all of them in the same colour

2) Defacing statues... Where do you draw the line here. I am not a fan of revising history, because i think we lose the lessons we need to learn from it by obfuscating it. So, i will put defacing in two parts
a) Memorials like the Cenotaph... i think morally this is wrong. I dont know the legal view, but i am assuming this is a act of vandalism and should be punished (policemen here can confirm)
b) Statues of old slave drivers... this is where it gets interesting. Legally, it will be vandalism. the bigger question is 'should we have a statue of a know slave owner'. As mentioned i am not a revisionist, so i would say, if we have a statue, we should include the fact he was a slave owner and not just talk of the philanthropy he did. Let people know. To pressure test this point, in a few years, would we even consider a statue of Ralf Harris or Jimmy Savile??.. I doubt it.

3) Burning Flags... Again, i think this is morally unacceptable esp if you live in that country. Legally, as you may know (in England) burning your own Union Jack is not a crime as Flag desecration is not defined in English Law. If you burn the flag on the Cenotaph, then it is an act of vandalism. If burning the flag upsets you, where do you draw the line.. Do you throw the remote at the TV when you see a picture like this

4) Social Media is full of' 'xx'... As you know social media is driven by your choices and preferences (do watch Social Dilemma on Netflix), so I am not surprised that you may be seeing it being full of people that say they had enough. This is a phenomenon called the 'social media echo chamber'... it just plays to whatever you like/dislike. My social media is all about SpaceX & Mars exploration along with a healthy dose of flat earthers.


Finally, the choice of 'having the knee thrust down their throats'... here i must admit, you could not have chosen the worst set of words in the context of the conversation.

Sorry for the long post.. I did not want to respond in 1-2 lines, but hopefully this helps to separate the noise that is drowning the core issues around what we were discussing..

PS: Typing this in 1 go, so i am assuming there will be typos..

 

[sunshine]

And I think “not taking the knee” is based on exactly this now.

Maybe for some, but probably only a minority. I agree with Les Ferdinand's comment that it was becoming diluted, but it is clearly still very important for some people. They are human and most footballers aren't that insensitive.

Given what happened at Millwall and Paris in the last week there is renewed relevance to the gesture.

 

[Colonel Bogey]

Just watch Politics Live and a bloke on there said that the fans booing is not against the racism thing it's just that it is being rammed down everyone's throats all the damn time.

He also said that it happened at Colchester as well. So it's not just Millwall fans. Others are getting fed up with it all. Still, most players in the Prem league aren't white, so no wonder this is being dragged out.

 

[SocketRocket]

It would prob be a good start to stop using that phrase

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/newsbeat-30999175

Why then is the term 'People of colour' acceptable?

 

[Mudball]

Came across this clip and I found it interesting to the debate about racism in society (not just in sports) I am going to try and find the second section where he defends Millwall.
https://fb.watch/2iXH7346d1/