To knee or not to knee?

On Sept 1st, 2016, when Colin Kaepernick first decided to take a knee during an exhibition game in San Diego with his teammate Eric Reid. He could not in his wildest dreams have imagined the global impact he was about to have. His taking of the knee during the national anthem, to protest systemic racism in the United States became a global symbol of support for racial equality. After the death of George Floyd in May 2020 and the rise of the Black Lives Matter protests, around the world, public figures from politicians to sports stars took the knee.

Here we are now in 2021 and many people especially in sport still choose to take the knee. Throughout the 2020/21 Premier League season just before kick-off, every team took the knee. The stadiums were empty when this started but towards the end of the season, as they started to fill again, boos could be heard from the terraces from some fans. Now as England take on their European rivals in the Euro 2020 tournament (re-scheduled to 2021 due to covid) they’re players continue to be met with boos when they take the knee. This has led to the England manager Gareth Southgate, pleading with fans to respect the player's wishes to show solidarity with not only the black players in the team but wider society, by continuing to take the knee. His pleas fell on deaf ears, the following game some fans continued to boo.

Ireland faced a similar situation during their warm-up game for the Euros as they took on Hungry in Budapest. As the Irish players took the knee just before kick-off boos reportedly echoed out, not from the Irish fans but from the Hungarian supporters. The Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban defended the booing saying among other things that “if you are a guest in a country, then you should understand its’s culture, and don’t provoke the locals” that taking a knee “has no place on a sports field” and “it doesn’t help to bring that heavy moral historical burden on to a football pitch”.

So why are fans booing when players take the knee? Why is it that England fans are willing to boo their own players before a game they want them to win, and Hungarian fans are willing to boo something their prime minister claims has nothing to do with them, as he declared “If we look at who found it out, or how it emerged, we see that it started in slave-owning countries… which Hungary never was.”

During Southgate’s plea, he made sure to mention that the taking of the knee was not ‘aligned to any specific political organisation or ideology.’ What political organisation or ideology is he talking about? Did Kaepernick start a political party? Is taking a knee the symbol of a new religion, like making the sign of the cross? What am I missing? I’m an open-minded kind of guy but to think all the players in the premier league have been converted to a new ideology or political organisation, willingly or unwillingly, is to be so open-minded as to have vacated your mind of all serious thought. They might all say the same post-game sound bites but let’s not forget they are not just a diverse group of people but also literal rivals. Death threat, publicly abused, rivals! Yet they're all part of the same masked ideology now? To believe in the Illuminati is one thing but to believe in a black Illuminati that has controlled sport, is somehow paradoxically ludicrously optimistic and sinister. And are we really to believe the Hungarian fans in question somehow thought this internationally renowned sign of support for racial equality, was taking place in front of them as part of some kind of mind game by the Irish Football Association. A chess move to get into the heads of the opposing players by insulting their host nation? Or just two fingers up at them because that’s just who they are? That’s what they thought... really!?

So, I stopped listening to the people on tv and asked the man in the street. Why are the England fans booing? His response “They just want to watch the game.” That sounds a lot like Mr. Orban’s this has “no place on a sports field”. At last, some common ground!

So let me put myself in the shoes of one of these fans, I’ve come to the game to watch football and now I have to deal with someone bringing up the “heavy moral historical burden” of racism. Ok, it's for 10 seconds at the start of a game, and ok it's not directly aimed at me, and ok it doesn’t require any response or action by me. But in all seriousness, it’s been brought up now, so I’m pissed and I have to let people know or they’ll keep bringing it up. Something doesn’t add up here.

I understand there is a time and a place for things and people don’t want to have to think about difficult issues, they want to enjoy themselves and relax at a game, escape for a while. The question I have though is why does it affect them so much? Surely if this 10 second gesture has such a visceral effect on them, there is probably a reason? And it can’t be their undying commitment to social justice. If it nags at them, what is it nagging at, what part of them is so irked by this gesture? If you’re raised Atheist let’s say, and you see a player make the sign of the cross as they enter the pitch if you find yourself booing them from the terrace you should probably ask yourself why. I’ve not seen it happen but maybe it’s just not the right kind of ‘ideology’ for that sort of stuff.

Ultimately, I’m not sure I really know why people are booing but I know what they’re booing. Progress isn’t about convenience, it’s about facing up to and dealing with difficult issues. So I say take the knee, keep taking the knee and let the boos ring out. Whatever the reason, it's so personal for people they’re willing to boo the people they’re there to support over it. Ignoring what they’re booing or why they’re booing seems equally naive. Communication may be the least developed skill we have, we’ll likely put a human on Mars before we figure out how two humans can have an open honest conversation with each other in public without fear of consequences.

As my football coach used to say “practice doesn’t make perfect it makes permanent” so maybe we should practice dealing with the hard conversations for a change before we become permanently ignorant of each other.