My problem with taking the knee (and obviously booing anyone taking the knee is very wrong, can we take that as read) or any other gesture to show support for an issue, is how do you ever stop? Black lives matter. Yes, of course they do. And they always will, so do we do this forever? Black lives will never stop mattering, there won't ever be a time when racism wasn't an issue, it will always have been an issue, players in the past will always have been abused, so, after say 9 months of taking the knee, how do you say it doesn't matter enough to you anymore to do it? Or do you come out and say, "I think everything is fine now, we've got that racism sorted." Well, no you haven't. Or you go on forever. Imagine a professional footballer comes out as gay next season. And then some homophobic neanderthal knifes him. So another gesture is done before the match, that homosexuality is OK (again, of course it is), pat your head and rub your belly, whatever it is, do they do that as well as the knee? Or does the knee stop and they start with that? And then there's another issue that becomes the hot topic. There always is. There will always be. Do professional football players have to stand and sit and kneel and wave their arms about in numerous different ways to show respect and affiliation to every issue? Black lives matter. Many players have suffered racism playing football. This is a fact. And many people have suffered many other kinds of discrimination. This is a fact too. So what do you do?
Well, with the greatest respect, which is more than plenty on here show to others, there’s only one answer to that. You don’t know me at all! I should know better than to post my personal views on here about things other than football. I was vilified mercilessly some time ago for expressing my views on a women’s rugby match and it’s happening again today. I’m not going to waste any more of my time writing about this subject. Clearly personal opinions that don’t accord with the majority view are worthless at best. I’m no more a racist than you are so I’ll leave it there. Life’s just too short to continue pointless debates.
I was against the gatherings, rioting and vandalism by a small minority of blm last summer. But I was also against tommy robinson and his sheep doing the same the week after.
Maybe if we're not being racist we let the black players lead the way in what they want to do and how long they want to do it for? Its 10 seconds top, if it lasts forever does it really matter?
Pretty sure black players don't stand in unison on every single issue. I would imagine there are a number of points of view, some which are contradictory, so which specific black players?
I don't get this notion of "we've put up with it long enough". People make it sound as though they're being forced to watch 18 hours straight of The Only Way is Essex or something. One on there also says we'll have to 'put up' with rainbow laces soon as well. Jesus christ! Why are people so offended about something any normal person would barely notice.
If this was fans of Forest Green Rovers we'd all be shocked. Instead it's the usual culprits, the Bermondsey ********. When folk like them and head bangers from within the Tory party make comments supporting such actions, surely the natural response would be to do the opposite.
I don’t recall reading that one, or any others by Niemoller which is surprising considering what I was doing until fairly recently. I was writing freelance articles for various websites, about every subject you can think of. One day though I was asked to do five thousand-word articles a week on some fairly obscure poets. The owner of the site liked what I did and this went on for a couple of years. I must have written 500-plus articles on poets going back to Ancient Greek and Roman times through to modern day writers. There was a lot of research involved and I really enjoyed reading the history. Despite all of this (700,000 words maybe?) some on here think me narrow-minded. Like I said above to YTBFC, you (that’s everyone on here) don’t know me AT ALL.
what’s being “rammed down your throat” ? who’s “they”? what’s upsetting you so much about people trying to bring parity and respect to the world?