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.

@nostaples

And since we cannot live separate lives and should not want to there MUST be dialogue and education.

Just as feminists must and do speak to men.

And no feminist makes those sort of patronising and self-defeatist comments to men, 'Oh you wouldn't understand because you're a man so I won't bother talking to you.'

No, but I do refuse to engage in feminist discussions with certain men, because I already know how the conversation will go. They'll tell me I'm wrong, tell me that street harassment is a compliment even though I've said a hundred times that it isn't, tell me we're not disadvantaged in the workplace even though I've given loads of examples of how we indeed are. They're just not really interested in the answer. They don't want to listen or learn, they just want an argument. It's exhausting, which is why I rarely bother any more as it rarely gets anywhere.

It's all irony @Carlotacoffee The book has become a bestseller with an enormous white readership and she has spent many hours talking to white people about it and her views. She has made a lot of money out of just that. I first heard her talking to Jenny Murray (as white and middle class as they get) on Woman's Hour.

The people on this thread are the same - complaining about something they are choosing to do.

It's clever to be fair.

Eddo-Lodge chose a particularly provocative title precisely to provoke the dialogue she's saying she isn't going to participate in.

*Ok, I'll educate. Taking a knee is a move in American football. If a "catcher" catches the ball and then takes a knes, the game must stop. Colin kapernic, some some years sgo, took a knee during the national anthem.

It's become a movement that represents BLM

But you knew most of that, didn't you? Or your Google is broken*

Interesting. The Googling I did suggested it was as simple as not standing for the US National Anthem. Nothing to do with stopping the game.

Here you go OP.

www.dismantlecollective.org/resources/

Lots of good reading in here.

I'd love to chat to you when you've read some of it.

And no feminist makes those sort of patronising and self-defeatist comments to men, 'Oh you wouldn't understand because you're a man so I won't bother talking to you.'

Have you been on the FWR board on here?

• At the same time as saying it's too much work for you to do the educating.

At the same time as actually spending a lot of time and energy criticising.

You really don't see the layers of irony?*

I posted a link for OP yesterday. Is that not good enough for you ?

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.

Entirely right.

I've been asked at work, at leisure. I don't answer. Neither my job nor my leisure time is involved with race education. Books and Google are out there

I think this is a really interesting and important question and people shouldn't be giving you grief for wanting to know something. There are so many hateful people on this site and I'm sorry that people are being nasty to you. x

Another article for you OP.
www.independent.co.uk/voices/dominic-raab-black-lives-matter-protest-kneeling-feminism-a9573526.html

The writer can't work out if Raab is dim or vicious.

To be fair it's a tough call.

I think it was playing to his base.

OP is clearly asking for insight and is welcoming a discussion.
Of course she could google, but getting real people's answers about what it means for them mean a lot more.
Ffs, this place sometimes is really fucking acerbic for no reason other than enjoying putting the fucking boot in.

Wow at this. Nostaples why are you so angry about? I can't see any problems with what anyone has said?

I think dismissing a passage from a very successful book I'm assuming you haven't read (have you?), which is pertinent to the thread topic, by saying:

'Er @Pedalboat with respect that's absolute bollocks.'

Doesn't really display the inquisitive mind, thirst for knowledge and interest in dialogue that you purport to have, tbh.

While reading through you seem to have said this as well...

'Stop being bitchy and actually stupid.'

Again this does not demonstrate the attributes that have been stated.

You just seem really pissed off and I don't know why.

@user1471453601 @CheshireSplat While that is a rule in American Football (sorta, the quarterback kneel) it's nothing to do with the action of 'taking a knee' in the current meaning.

go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.npr.org/2018/09/09/646115651/the-veteran-and-nfl-player-who-advised-kaepernick-to-take-a-knee

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/explainers-53098516

Thank you Coffee.

I'm pleased my Googling yielded the correct result.

I watch the BBC news often, listen to radio news and read the odd newspaper. I've never heard of 'taking the knee' before the recent BLM protests. I wouldn't have looked it up to find out historical info because I didn't realise it was a 'thing'.

@ShinyFootball what I said was bollocks was being told I was too privileged to understand how weary it is to educate people.

When that poster knows nothing about my life.

Or the fact that I have actually been a teacher for 20 years.

Suspect that telling my students (and indeed their parents) and indeed anybody who asks a question as the starting point of conversation would not go down very well.

But thankfully most people are less resentful and more socially responsible than some of the posters here.

But as has been pointed out many times there is no compulsion to come on here and explain.

But it is a bit weird to spend just as much or more energy and time (which certain posters seem to resent so much) in belittling and telling people off for not knowing stuff than in just telling them...

I'm not pissed off, just engaging in dialogue (which is what some posters say they won't do at the same time as actually doing it and exactly what Reni Eddo-Lodge is doing at the same time as saying she won't do it).

indeed anybody who asks a question as the starting point of conversation would not go down very well.

So you always engage with people and patiently explain to them the facts when they ask about being paid for the holidays, why you moan if you're only working 9-3, why teachers are striking for "more money" again etc.?

@PrincessConsuelaBananaHammock probably yes

But if I didn't want to spend my leisure time doing that, then I would probably avoid those threads.

Don't you think it would be a bit odd if I made a beeline for a thread with the OP 'Teachers are lazy, do no work and have long holidays' and then went on and on about how I didn't want to engage in that dialogue?

I have never, ever told anybody to Google it on here or in RL

And in teaching or as parent I think I would last minutes if I tried that or if I was the sort of person who would say that

I suspect few people would say that in RL and that's often quite a good guide of whether it's a good thing to say isn't it. If you wouldn't say it to someone in RL, perhaps don't say it on here.

Bizarre to go to the trouble of writing a comment saying that you don't want to answer the question and OP shouldn't have asked it. Easier just not to click on the thread, surely?

I think the trouble is that the symbolism of kneeling is so very different in the UK and the US. In the UK, it does generally connote subordination, surrender or begging, as someone said upthread. Some recent images make me feel very uncomfortable for that reason, and I, like Dominic Raab, wouldn't personally participate in a protest of that sort. I also recognise that to other people, especially in the US, it has different associations.

This thread is mad! And nasty. It’s an internet chat forum ffs, the whole point is that people ask questions. Normal people scroll through the list of topics and read the ones that they want too, ignoring the others.
There’s no law saying you have to google before posting, sometimes it’s good to gave a virtual’chat’ about things and hopefully get a range of ideas and maybe a bit of nuance.
I too am interested in the history of ‘taking the knee’. It seems a uniquely US thing to me and I’m not sure how it translates to the UK, where it more resembles a knight bowing before a monarch / wedding proposal and is usually called kneeling rather than taking a knee.
Personally I’d feel deeply uncomfortable doing it, not because I don’t think that the message is important but because I’d feel like I was doing an action that isn’t mine to do - like I’d be claiming a problem that isn’t mine. It would feel performative and an appropriation. But I may be completely wrong to feel this! Hence discussion is useful. I’d be interested to know if black people would welcome white people kneeling with them or if they would find it difficult. I googled the BLM website the other day and I noticed that women’s issues were bottom of the list and it made me wonder why the protests seem to focus on men so much.