What do you think of Lammy's comments on taking the knee?

[ForSnappySwan]

David Lammy has said he wouldn't take the knee for Nowak as it's just symbolism.

He was asked why did he take the knee for George Floyd, and he said it was different then because we were in a pandemic.

What do you think? I think he's right about the first point but don't understand what the knee has got to do with the pandemic.

There was another Labour MP on Newsnight this week who's clearly embarrassed that she took the knee and said something like "it was right then but that's in the past now and we shouldn't go back to it"

I can honestly say that, even at the height of the madness, I never took the knee and I never will. I didn’t bang saucepans during Covid, either. It’s all virtue-signalling nonsense.

Lammy is obviously embarrassed now by being reminded that he took the knee. His hypocrisy is pathetic but Labour politicians are trapped between activists on their own side who demand public gestures & the wider public who think they are performative nonsense. We might respect him more if he just admitted that.

I go to a lot of big sporting events and it became a pre-game ritual at one point. Until the crowds got fed up with it & started booing it. Then it stopped, unsurprisingly. 🙄

While it is correct to say that the police could not save Henry, they at least could have allowed him a dignified death instead of him having to plead for an ambulance and hearing his rights being read as the last thing he heard. It’s incomprehensible. It’s obvious to anyone (even the untrained) that he was having a medical emergency.

And I wouldn’t even want our police force to treat a criminal like that, never mind a child. It’s disgraceful and I hope Henry’s death can be the beginning of the end of the madness we are seeing all around us.

And neither have Black people in the UK.

I suspect Baroness Lawrence might disagree with you.

I think you're mistaken if you believe there has been no institutional racism or lasting impact from historical discrimination in the UK.

Just look at Windrush, stop and search, Black maternal mortality rates, the strip-searching of underage Black girls, disparities in healthcare outcomes and treatment, bias in schools and so on. These are not isolated incidents. We can debate the causes, but it's difficult to argue these issues don't exist.

I suspect Black people are in a better position to talk about racism in the UK than you or I.

As for Lammy, he is just like every other career politician. IMO his comments are hardly a surprise. No substance.

Isn’t the point that racism is different in the US and the UK though and has different historical contexts. Trying to equate the two and find common solutions won’t work

I completely agree with you and I find the posts rushing to say he wouldn’t have been saved anyway distasteful.

However from below it may not be correct, it looks like further investigation will happen. Which is good.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyv2ddgpn8qo#:~:text=The%20coroner%20said%3A%20%22The%20issue,of%2021%20years%20on%20Monday.

An inquest jury will consider whether "any act or omission by police officers" or delay in treatment caused or contributed to the death of Henry Nowak.
Resuming a hearing, Hampshire coroner Jason Pegg said the full circumstances surrounding the death on 3 December had not been fully scrutinised.

He is an utter twat.

Of course there are multiple reasons for this other than ‘just’ racism. A PP has mentioned some; I’ll add complications related to FGM, complications related to multiple births, heavily-pregnant, possibly non-English speaking women coming to UK to give birth under the NHS without sharing medical history.

The politicians who took the knee are the exact same ones who were happy to sell women's rights out if they thought it would virtue signal to the right people. Lammy called women dinosaurs hoarding their rights and as i recall he thought men could grow a cervix. In sum, he is an idiot and a hypocrite.

I completely agree with you and I find the posts rushing to say he wouldn’t have been saved anyway distasteful

I agree. Why are posters so desperate to prove he couldn’t have been saved?

Im in the UK. I don’t want to see British politicians taking the knee because of problems in the US . It’s ludicrous.

And the idea of “taking the knee” as a means of publicly displaying your political correctness is both comical and sinister

I would be more concerned with 250,000 Black Americans being murdered over the last 25 years (mostly by other Black Americans) than your figure of 3,000 killed by the Police over the last 25 years.

As a parent the trauma is the same regardless of how your child is killed, what is important is the probability and risk factor.

I thought this at the time.

From what I read, it described the type of injury he had, but not the effect on that type of injury jury by driving him, forcing his arms back, putting pressure on his back with a knee.

Im glad there will be an inquest, as this needs to be judged, there are doctors who say they don’t necessarily agree the injury was unsurvivable 😔

This.

Is everyone weeping over people killed by Russian police, or Chinese police, or police Cuba or Mexico?

Why not?

America is not even in the top 20 countries for the numbers of people killed by police. Most of the top 10 are African/south American countries with non white populations and non white police forces. With smaller populations but higher numbers of police killings.

No knees were visible for these people.

All this performative nonsense. We had it a few years ago and it was bloody cringe.

Lest we forget:

Stephen Lawrence
https://stephenlawrenceday.org/stephens-story/

David Oluwale
https://rememberoluwale.org/

3.7 times more UK Black pregnant women and new mothers dying in the maternity system
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmselect/cmhealth/895/report.html

Etc.

Transatlantic slave trade triangle implicates US and UK
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/trade-triangle

If anything, the fact there was a pandemic should have meant we stayed inside and away from others (not getting into a 6 year old debate about lockdowns btw).

Sorry, I thought we were specifically referring to a case involving police and the death of someone in custody. But yes, you make a good point about the impact of legalised firearms.

Yes, the consequences of empire are truly horrific.

Embarrassing for him!

Yup.

They don't call him "Calamity Lammy" for nothing...

Good point.

Selective sympathy as usual....

Hmmm:

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/sikhs-scared-leave-homes-southampton-henry-nowak-murder-gpxg39b8l