Gunfire wrote:
But far less than it used to. Furthermore the knee taking is now so perfunctory and done so often it has lost its meaning if ever it had any. Certainly racists aren't going to change their ways because a bunch of highly paid players kneel down.
I suppose the question has to be whether ‘taking the knee’ does anything to reduce racism? I presume that cannot have been proven one way or the other considering the only player I’m aware of who has stopped doing it is Crystal Palace’s Wilfred Zaha, who is obviously black himself.
I think it’s noticeable that with every single live game shown on telly, as far as those I’ve seen the start of anyway, the commentators always make a point of saying why it’s being done. They must have been told to do so, I’m guessing to stop people forgetting why players are doing it. Without commentators doing that, would I have forgotten why it ever started? I’d like to think my memory isn’t quite so bad to have no idea at all why it started, but in years to come it would probably be no more than something in the ‘back of my mind’.
I’m not saying ‘taking the knee’ should be stopped, but I’m not convinced it does anything useful to stop racism either. It does sometimes strike me as football doing a flimsy bit of pretending to do something worthwhile, when I’m not sure it is. I feel there are measures that are immeasurably more important that could be done such as in children’s education and stopping online racial abuse, for just two examples.
I think the main thing football has done is make black players heroes to white kids and vice versa. What white kid who supported Arsenal at the time couldn’t have seen Henry, Vieira and Campbell as heroes; and what black kid who supported Arsenal couldn’t have seen Bergkamp, Petit and Adams as heroes? Hopefully exactly the same thing applies to modern white kids with Saka and black kids with Smith Rowe. The same thing will apply at young fans at other clubs.
Some fair points Bernard.
But taking the knee seems to me to be a highly visible, powerful statement that certainly has raised awareness, especially I think amongst the young.
We need to keep shining a light on the dark places where racism and all forms of injustice in the world exist, and this particular stance is one way of helping to achieve that. But as you say, more need to be done.
And one more thing; last night’s episode of taking the knee has got us talking about it.
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.....the answer is someone who went on be deputy CEO of the PFA
