Taking of the Knee

Correction - how he's chosen to perceive the movement and taking a knee. Rightly or wrongly, the objectives of the BLM are well documented and evidently go well beyond striving for racial equality. The idea that the political ideology has hijacked the movement is simply false.

By football aligning itself to a movement/ritual so entwined with extremist and provocative connotations, Saturday's reaction was inevitable. Simply branding anyone who speaks out against BLM as racist is lazy and demonstrates real ignorance and a frightening intolerance for freedom of thought. It's deeply concerning how so many prominent figures can't distinguish between racism and voicing disapproval for BLM support.

Football needs it's own way/gesture to promote racial equality which I've no doubt 99.9% would get behind. 

Well in that case I should correct you again and say the objectives of BLM UK are well documented, a fringe group with nothing to do with the social movement as a whole or the EFL’s decision for clubs to take the knee. Such an action which is clearly in support of the fight against the discrimination of black people and nothing else.

Football has its own way of promoting racial equality and fighting other forms of discrimination, kick it out. The problem is that has failed to generate a fraction of the conversation about Racism in sport as BLM has done in the last few months. Let’s be honest, how many people fail to bat an eyelid when the players wear kick it out t-shirts in their pre match warmup?

I’m not going to tar everyone who doesn’t support BLM with the same brush, because the truth is I think most people can agree that discrimination in all its forms is wrong and I don’t think it’s inherently racist just to disagree with kneeling.

The thing is booing footballers who are just trying to make a stance against discrimination and those who support booing are just indirectly condoning those who do possess racist views, its sends a really bad message. 

I also think everyone knows perfectly well why the act of kneeling is performed by footballers, they just choose to conveniently ignore that in order to have a pop at a form of politics they don’t like / agree with.

Simple.

Equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome.

It's not hard to fathom.

It really baffles me how some people struggle to understand this, and the thought that we are so able to advocate diversity, but not diversity of thought or opinion. Strange.

Do you have the facts about how many Black people applied to be a Football Manager? What the clubs interview process was, the skills and credentials they were looking for, etc? Do you know the facts about how many Black people have applied or even have the skills to be in a position of power or a CEO?

Black people are over represented in ratio to demographics in plenty of other areas too.

So lets have an honest and frank discussion about it but dont just throw out the boring statements like " There's not enough Black managers, so it's RACISM" line.

Show me the facts and data that prove this, and I might change my mind.

We're not talking about BLM UK though are we? The act of taking a knee is linked back to the US movement which undoubtedly supports more than racial equality. Indeed the BLM UK movement have several question marks against them, not least after a series of anti-Zionist tweets and declaring their aims were to “to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white-supremacy, patriarchy and the state structures that disproportionately and systematically harm Black people in Britain and around the world.” That screams out as a socialist movement wouldn't you say? The fact that they've raised over £1m yet offer zero transparency regarding names of individuals running the organisation is more than concerning too.

I'd argue that Kick It Out has achieved a fair bit in terms of awareness but could do a lot more.

To be clear, I wouldn't boo players for taking a knee and I think the motivations are the right ones. However I don't feel it's the right way to continue and, as a result of the connotations and links, has the potential to become even more inflammatory and counter productive.

Exactly, so the point I am saying is that we do not have equality of opportunity. Opportunity is not equally distributed, thank you for backing up my point. 

Those statistics you're asking for are impossible to prove for either argument, I can flip it to say do you know how many white people applied to be a football manager? It doesn't necessarily make either of our points correct. The question we should be asking is why don't we have enough black people in positions of power, rather than trying suggest that it's not a problem.

Why do you think we don't have enough black people in positions of power? Can you show me the other areas where black people are over represented? Then to further that point once you've shown it, what your opinion is on why they're over represented there. 

As I understand it, the symbolism of 'taking the knee' started in 2016 with Colin Kaepernik and not the BLM movement.

It was then used by police during a rally in North Carolina.

If that's the case then surely it has either been misappropriated by BLM and needs to be regained or people are incorrectly associating the two.

Happy to be corrected.

I think that what is getting mixed is the taking of the knee being linked to BLM as a whole movement rather than the gesture of solidarity which is what it actually represents.


Colin Kapernick initially sat and then knelt during the national anthem to highlight the racism and oppression he perceived in America. To my knowledge it was nothing to do with BLM as a movement or organisation, but to raise awareness and gain some solidarity. The reaction that got at the time is almost mirrored by boos at Millwall and Colchester with some fans clearly not grasping what the knee taking actually means.

It’s fair to say I’ve had this conversation a few times before and the quote you’ve chosen inevitably comes up quite a bit. Now I wouldn’t place myself anything as far left as members of BLM, however with that quote, ask yourself just what is so wrong with it?

Nothing wrong with dismantling imperialism, that kind of viewpoint belongs in the 19th century and the days of the British empire are long gone. Nothing wrong with dismantling white supremacy, as we are reminded all the time “all lives matter” not some more than others. Dismantling the patriarchy, again I see nothing wrong with wanting gender quality, especially in reference to black women who are one of the most marginalised groups in the UK. Then dismantling state structures that harm black people in Britain, is this not something everyone wants, to not have state run groups discriminating against ethnic minorities in the UK if it can be proved there is such a thing?

The capitalist bit, which people seem to take offence to the most, I don’t interpret that as lets remove capitalism within the UK and replace it with a communist system where everyone is treated equally to the letter of the law. I read it as let’s combat the parts of capitalism that act against the interests of black people and make sure that black people in the workplace are fairly represented and their voices are heard, based on the skills and talents they possess.

I’m not going to try to defend BLM UK as a movement because they exploited BLM for publicity and the chance to ask for donations. I just find it amusing that people bring up that quote to discredit BLM as a whole when actually there isn’t too much wrong with it if you don’t agree with discriminatory practices.

As Stuart has rightfully pointed out above, the knee action stems back to Colin Kaepernick and his protest against his perceived injustices within the sport. So it predates the BLM protest entirely and therefore cannot be intrinsically linked with the political views that some advocates of the movement might be associated with.

I think it’s a fair observation that it has been misappropriated somewhere. The anthem is the key bit. We don’t have anthems in football games so it’s gotten kind of warped for the governing body to say “here you go, here’s a little sandbox for you to perform in” (because for me it is performance if they governing body tell you that’s what you have to do). It’s far from an authentic gesture of solidarity in that sense. Throwing in the black lives matter slogan then muddies the waters and gives it a political edge to object to whilst also providing cover for the real racists to hide under as they object to equality. We need to evolve from it