Taking the knee

[TroubleNo1]

Really just wanted an insight into the history or significance of 'taking the knee' in support of Black Lives Matter.

I am 100% in support of the movement but Dominic Raab has been criticised for not doing it and in response I've not heard a reason why it is historically or currently something that if you don't do means you are not in support?

I want to be educated!

Looking forward to learning the meaning and reason behind it and if anyone thinks if you don't do it it's in some way opposed to the movement.

Not trying to slag people off, but I have been amazed at the number of people who have never heard or had any notion of Colin Kaepernick and 'taking a knee'.
This isn't a recent story. It has been headline news often and referred to so,so many times over the last 3/4 years!
I think it has shown how often people (myself included) perhaps don't engage with news that we don't think relates to us?
I mean I know nothing about American football, but the importance of this story and how often it has been referenced over the years, has meant I was well aware of it.
If you in anyway read the news you surely would have heard this? Big name celebrities and sports stars have shown their support for him. Thankfully it has resulted in the NFL backtracking and allowing players to 'take a knee' in protest.
It was huge step,and seems to have just bypassed most people.
I'm sure I have missed plenty of other important issues, but I am quite surprised so many people appear to have missed this one.

I bet Raabs colleagues are tearing a strip off him for not googling the origins of this action before he attributed it to Game of flipping Thrones .

I read about the controversy over kaepernick, but it's a completely different country, not particularly more or less on my radar than any other million news stories, plus it involved the word 'sport', and was years ago. I'm not surprised people didn't hear about it at the time. I thought it was basketball, which shows how much attention I was paying.

Interesting about the phrase 'taking the knee' being an actual phrase in American football. That wasn't mentioned in whatever article I read. Makes a bit of sense as I did wonder why it wasn't just the shorter simpler verb 'kneel'

Americans and their veneration of the flag. All a mystery. We think their culture is like ours as our language is the same but we have nothing much in common really.

Big name celebrities and sports stars have shown their support for him

That's perhaps why for some people it seems amazing that everyone hasn't heard of it. If you follow celebrities or sport, it probably comes up a lot. If not, not really.

This is half the problem. People expecting the work to be done for them. "I want to be educated! Come and tell me everything so I don't have to expend any emotional labour!". It's just so, so tiresome
well don't reply then.
Why is everyone so frigging stroppy on here

I don't follow celebrities or sport even slightly.

Colin Kaepernick's actions and the reaction to it were covered widely for over a period of time. Main page BBC news, papers etc etc

It wasn't in the sports section as it was about politics, racism, his reasons for doing it, others joining him, calls from USA politicians for him to be barred from playing etc etc

Lots of people don't follow the news closely.
Brexit coverage put some people off even more from turning the news on in recent years.
Coverage of a political/sports based issue in another country isn't going to be top of everyone's agenda.
I agree people shouldn't be criticized for asking questions.
I don't actually think there is inherent virtue in being a news political junkie, I follow stuff because it happens to interest me if it doesn't interest others they shouldn't be made to feel bad.

If you follow celebrities or sport, it probably comes up a lot

I don't. I actually barely watch telly and don't really do newspapers either. I still knew about Colin Kaepernick when it happened and the whole "respect the flag!" Bullshit when it was never about the flag.

It rang a bell when it came up recently, so I did some googling to refresh my memory.

All this "ohhh but we can't possibly discern what's true and what isn't on google " is just navel gazing. Google it, pick a newspaper , get basic facts and then keep digging if you think/feel there's more to it. Taking the knee is not that an obscure situation that you couldn't possibly find more info on it,if you so wish.

Well sure Endless but there's a lot of difference between saying 'i don't follow the need closely' and 'i don't know about this because I don't follow sport or celebrities'

Which tbh just makes the person sound defensive and even more clueless

Looking forward to learning the meaning and reason behind it and if anyone thinks if you don't do it it's in some way opposed to the movement.

You're looking forward to it? This isn't a job application cover letter.

When people say "educate me" it comes across as being entitled to people's time. Educating people can be exhausting and uses up a lot personal energy. There are plenty of people who have already chosen to be educators, e.g. bloggers, writers, journalists etc. The information is already out there. Any woman who has repeatedly tried to explain sexism to men, and got fed up with it, should really know this.

Not to mention that a lot of the time people that say "I just want to know/be educated" are just being goady, and already of the opposite side. They think it's fun to have people work away to try and explain, when they have no intention of changing their minds, or worse it's just a platform for them to air their views. Then they do the whole faux innocence "I was just asking a question/ I just want to learn " gig, complete with "you people are so mean and horrible ,which just shows you're wrong".

It's depressing and tiring. I don't blame people (normally at a disadvantage women,minorities,disabled people etc) for being fed up,tired,weary and not willing to engage.

'When people say "educate me" it comes across as being entitled to people's time.'

I disagree strongly. Wanting to be educated is WONDERFUL and most socially responsible people actually ENJOY helping, informing, advising, educating. Thankfully you are in the minority here and you sound bitter and weary.

Give me someone asking for information any day over a know all.

'Educating people can be exhausting and uses up a lot personal energy'

Then don't do it. Thankfully there are plenty of other people who don't feel that way.

And surely taking the time to criticise is just as time consuming and 'exhausting', surely more so.

Go and have a rest and try some positivity.

Or... just google it?

Well said @nostaples.

I disagree strongly. Wanting to be educated is WONDERFUL and most socially responsible people actually ENJOY helping, informing, advising, educating. Thankfully you are in the minority here and you sound bitter and weary.

There speaks the voice of privilege, with no idea why someone who is continually called on to 'educate' might indeed be 'bitter and weary':

This is Reni Eddo-Lodge from Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race:

“I can no longer have this conversation, because we’re often coming at it from completely different places. I can’t have a conversation with them about the details of a problem if they don’t even recognise that the problem exists. Worse still is the white person who might be willing to entertain the possibility of said racism, but who thinks we enter this conversation as equals. We don’t.

“Not to mention that entering into conversation with defiant white people is a frankly dangerous task for me. As the hackles rise and the defiance grows, I have to tread incredibly carefully, because if I express frustration, anger or exasperation at their refusal to understand, they will tap into their presubscribed racist tropes about angry black people who are a threat to them and their safety. It’s very likely that they’ll then paint me as a bully or an abuser. It’s also likely that their white friends will rally round them, rewrite history and make lies the truth. Trying to engage with them and navigate their racism is not worth that.

“Amid every conversation about Nice White People feeling silenced by conversations about race, there is a sort of ironic and glaring lack of understanding or empathy for those of us who have been visibly marked out as different for our entire lives, and live the consequences. It’s truly a lifetime of self-censorship that people of colour have to live. The options are: speak your truth and face the reprisals, or bite your tongue and get ahead in life. It must be a strange life, always having permission to speak and feeling indignant when you’re finally asked to listen. It stems from white people’s never-questioned entitlement, I suppose.

“I cannot continue to emotionally exhaust myself trying to get this message across, while also toeing a very precarious line that tries not to implicate any one white person in their role of perpetuating structural racism, lest they character-assassinate me.

“So I’m no longer talking to white people about race. I don’t have a huge amount of power to change the way the world works, but I can set boundaries. I can halt the entitlement they feel towards me and I’ll start that by stopping the conversation. The balance is too far swung in their favour. Their intent is often not to listen or learn, but to exert their power, to prove me wrong, to emotionally drain me, and to rebalance the status quo.

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race

Er @Pedalboat with respect that's absolute bollocks.

If you come on a thread where somebody is asking to be educated and you don't want to then just say nothing. It is evident that there are plenty of people who are willing.

As I've said, you waste just as much time and effort unnecessarily and unhelpfully criticising as just giving an explanation.

And I have been a teacher for the past 20 years. I find educating (mostly) energising and rewarding in my job and I feel I have a social responsibility to advise, help, educate when called on outside of my job.

I also feel the need to be educated about all sorts of things daily.

Education makes us all better people. Wanting to be educated likewise.

If you don't think so, you don't have to.

It's not bollocks at all. It's an actual black person saying why they're exhausted.

I admit I do get weary when people don't want to learn and are closed minded.

God forbid I should ever be weary when somebody wants to learn. Or likewise of learning myself.

During lockdown although I am still working and am educated to Masters level, I have started studying a completely new language.

You are right that I am white but I never weary of educating people about feminism either, in spite of the fact that like most of us I'm sure, I've come across the most appalling misogyny.

Fortunately, you are in the minority. I respect the fact that YOU personally are weary of this particular battle but it is wrong to foist that on others or belittle people who want to learn, which is never wrong.

It is bollocks to tell a teacher of 20 years that they have no idea how wearying it is to educate!

Take it up with Reni Eddo-Lodge, @nostaples. Tell her that her position on refusing to educate is 'bollocks'.

There is an irony there though isn't there @Pedalboat in that in writing that book she IS educating as she well knows.

You fundamentally don't get it, do you, @nostaples?

She's explaining to white people why they are not entitled to the time and efforts of black people at dinner parties, and that Nice White People don't get to whinge about how some 'bitter and weary' black person didn't want to explain 'taking the knee' and BLM to them over the canapés.

During lockdown although I am still working and am educated to Masters level, I have started studying a completely new language.

I have a four degrees, including a DPhil. I speak five languages. I like to learn. But I have done so either by reading information that is already out there, self-teaching via internet resources, or by learning from people who are paid to teach me, during their working hours.

I don't think I'm entitled to someone else's time and emotional effort when they're at leisure, when the information is easily discoverable from credible sources elsewhere.

'I don't think I'm entitled to someone else's time and emotional effort when they're at leisure, when the information is easily discoverable from credible sources elsewhere.'

That's just a downright stupid comment. Since you are not entirely self taught as none of us is you have taken up others' time and emotional effort at leisure or not. All of us do, it's what happens in a society. It's what parenting and friendship and community is.

You're also missing Eddo-Lodge's irony which is a shame since she has spoken about it herself on Woman's Hour for example.

You're also missing the irony that like Eddo-Lodge, you're complaining about how weary speaking to white people makes you while CHOOSING to do that very thing.

If you really don't want to do it then don't do it. But why on earth are you still on here?