Questions for white people: what is the problem with "taking the knee"

[Flayn]

1. What is the problem with taking the knee
2. How would you prefer athletes protest racism

I am a regular poster, under a changed name and speak 2nd language English - I know the passive aggressiveness some posters adopt for this topic.

Flax, do you really believe critical race theory is being widely taught in English and Welsh schools?

I find that difficult to believe.

I have no problem with it. How could I, when I completely agree with the motivation behind it. My knees might have something to combine about if I had occasion tk do it myself, but as long as there was someone to help me up count me in.
The only person I know who disagrees is an elderly man who hates anyone who isn't exactly like him eg women, people of colour, anyone who isn't British and anyone under the age of 40.

You prefer the salute but this is the gesture they have chosen. It's up to them

As to whether someone would be pressured to join in if they didn't want to we have no evidence of that. They are a close knit team that is obvious and it seems much more likely that someone suggested it and they talked about it and all agreed it was good to take a stand together. That's rather the beauty of it that it's a grass roots symbol of unity in the face of racism

Racism obviously is not just a US issue
The report on the Stephen Lawrence case found UK police to be institutionally racist and no-one was ever convicted of his racist murder. Young black men continue to die in police custody at twice the rate of any other ethnic group
Christopher Adler, Sean Rigg Kingsley Burrell, Rashan Charles, Sheku Bayou to name but a few and no-one was ever convicted in relation to any of those deaths in fact in the case of Chris Alder and Sean Rigg it was proven that officers lied, hid evidence and attempts were made to cover it up.

Are you still going to say this is just a US problem? It really is not

I don't just blame police though. It's not as easy as that. My belief is that those young men died because of racist stereotypes that black men are dangerous and violent and need to be subdued with extra force. Those are beliefs that many people harbour at some level. We all need to be open to challenge on this.

Hmmm, since the British part of me is Scottish, I could bang on about that for ages , Flax

Very enthusiastic slave owners in the BWI and a sugar aristocracy, but I wouldn't blame ordinary working class Scots for it

Flax, do you really believe critical race theory is being widely taught in English and Welsh schools

Certainly in our university's recently its gaining ground yes, and increasingly in schools

[quote NeonDreams]And enough with the lies about CHAZ. The facts show a completely different story; www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53218448[/quote]
there are no lies about chaz lorenzo andersons family are suing the city of seattle after their son died after being shot in the zone and no medical aid could get through , , another shooting victim wants to sue the police claiming they were too slow to respond after being shot , but hey they didnt want police , also several business are suing after being forced to close during the time the zone was up , nice try to put up 2 links making out it was a heavenly little utopia free of the police and supported by blm though when the truth was anything but

You prefer the salute but this is the gesture they have chosen. It's up to them

Exactly.
How is it the right of anyone to turn around and say how they should or shouldn't be protesting, and which gestures are deemed more "acceptable?"
Seems a bit arrogant to me.

Young black men continue to die in police custody at twice the rate of any other ethnic group
I think we need a link to these stats and that isn't a rant from a journo in a newspaper - we need the stats. As it depends, most likely, which years you choose to study and how far back you go in time. In the last couple of years this was not the case. And what is meant as custody - actually in a police cell, crashing a high powered car in a police chase, dying from an overdose of drugs taken to avoid being found with them.......
www.inquest.org.uk/deaths-in-police-custody

Looking here
www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
It could be the US that has that stat (twice as many black people shot as white).

I posted stats upthread. Nice racial profiling of crimes there.

@Piggywaspushed
Thanks Piggy - your stats exactly prove my point - they are stats taken from between 1991 and 2014 - rather an odd set of year choices, no?
And being 7 years out of date......

Because that's the last time that organisation gathered them . Its kept quite secret. There are also enquiries and inquests. But Leon Briggs and Dalian Atkinson and others are since 2014.

@Lweji

You see people saying "white lives matter" are accused of being racist and the anger over the bursaries for white working class boys, they are simply not allowed

For good reasons...
White lives already matter more than any others. And black lives matter disproprotionately less than others.

And why not bursaries for all boys from low income households?
Even so, I expect black boys are even more disadvantaged.

So yet again they don't matter. Don't be surprised if they kick or lash out against that.

Btw the statistics don't back you up on the last point.

As a black woman I really object to all members of a race being tarred with certain brushes.

I see the government have managed to get us to believe them. White working class boys under perform because of the disadvantages of poverty, not skin colour or discrimination. And, once more : black Caribbean boys, travellers of both sexes, and Bangladeshi boys perform worse.

One way in which the UK and US differ with regard to BAME populations is how recently the population has expanded in the UK. Go back just 80 years, a time when segregationalist laws existed in the US, and the population of BAME in the UK was very small. This numbers have gone up substantially through immigration within the last 30 years. Which means you can't just compare relative numbers in different positions as you have a settled population and an immigrant population. The immigrant population has hurdles to overcome by virtue of being immigrant: cultural differences, education, finance, health, the urgent need to take on jobs which may be below their qualifications, etc It is not always easy to differentiate racism from these issue but they need to be addressed in different ways.

@Flayn

1. What is the problem with taking the knee

1. How would you prefer athletes protest racism

I am a regular poster, under a changed name and speak 2nd language English - I know the passive aggressiveness some posters adopt for this topic.

I support it. Anything that draws attention to the issue and keeps it on the agenda. My parents however do not. At the football on Sunday unprompted there were outbursts of "why are they taking the knees that's stupid. They shouldn't be doing it". Challenged, their response was that it isnt achieving anything. I did give them a lecture as to why it is actually helpful but that's an insight into the different views.

My MIL worked 'in service' and was expected to be subservient. She was taught to 'know her place.' The gesture has connotations of class divisions and feudalism to me, and possibly for other older people who have an interest in the history and social divisions within the UK. It would also be impossible for me to get back up. The gesture is not accessible to anyone who is not mobile enough to do it.
Having said that I can see it has a different meaning for those doing it, and that's fine.

I agree with the poster up thread who said that linking arms would be a lovely gesture of solidarity. If you remove any ambiguity from the gesture, what is there that can be disagreed with, unless it is pure racism?

I don't know if the accusation of 'arrogant' was directed at me?
If course it's not up to me to police which gesture is acceptable. I was merely stating my opinion.
I think that's still allowed.

It wasn't directed at anyone in particular, just the whole notion of saying what is or isn't acceptable as a gesture or what would be more "pleasant" or whatever seems a bit of an arrogant attitude as I don't think it's up to anyone else to say how people should or shouldn't be protesting, even more so if it was coming from someone who wasn't black (obviously no idea if you or anyone else is)

@Piggywaspushed

I see the government have managed to get us to believe them. White working class boys under perform because of the disadvantages of poverty, not skin colour or discrimination. And, once more : black Caribbean boys, travellers of both sexes, and Bangladeshi boys perform worse.

But black African perform better than all and they are definitely black.

As a white woman,I object to being lumped together with all other white people.

You are missing the point spectacularly but thanks for pointing that out to me.

But anyway, those same students still stand a lower chance of being accepted at top universities, will be paid less than white male counterparts in future on average and have a lower chance of getting a first or 2:1.

It is astonishing to me that we are ignoring the stats on Black Caribbean boys because 'everyone else does better'...

And btw it is also not true that Black Africans perform most highly :

www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/11-to-16-years-old/gcse-results-attainment-8-for-children-aged-14-to-16-key-stage-4/latest