The reason behind the booing

 

Subject: The reason behind the booing

Is taking the knee an act of symbolism or it’s it a call to arms and does opposition to it mean the person is a racist.

Racism  is a complex subject and has become one of the derisive issues of the decade. The plausibility, or implausibility of categorising someone because of their skin colour on one level is stupid but as with so many things we form judgements based on the input we receive through the press or with our own real life experience. These judgements can be categorised as being based on a mixture of prejudice and first hand knowledge and inevitably  are based on generalisation which usually are a weak link in our sense of right and wrong. An individuals experience usually makes a mockery of the general consensus in that the exception, which lies with the individual, often proves the generalisation wrong

Equality for all is claimed as the basis for taking the knee and yet taking the knee is largely projected as a racial thing, a protest against the inequality towards black people, so much so that politics soon becomes intertwined and discredits the movement.

Black Lives Matter which affiliates 'taking the knee' has cast itself as anti capitalist, anti business, and generally speaking anti the way our democracies are set up with power lying in few hands and the proceeds of that power making a few people horrendously rich. On that basis, if we are not rich we should at least be taking note and have at least some sympathy with what is said.

If I agree to take the knee, as rich football players, do I condemn the system which made me rich, and can I condemn the inequality which arises when I compare to my friend who never quite made the first team and struggles. Do the men and women on the terraces who boo the symbolism of ‘taking the knee’ not also make a point that although all lives matter, the injustice is just as prevalent for a poor undereducated white as it is for a black person and their skin colour seems to work against them.

Of course it’s the system which ‘buries equality’ not the colour of your skin. In some societies being black is an advantage, in others it’s your religion which gives a leg up and of course the greatest balm in life is having money. So when people show their unwillingness to come under the influence of what is seen as a Woke mentality, which only seems biased towards racial injustice and forgets social injustice, then I have some sympathy with those who boo.

This determination to see things through a racial prism and not a social one is causing much harm in our multicultural society. People see decades old structures built on a  tradition of tolerance turned against them by new arrivals and feel thwarted and made  incoherent by the rules and structures which rise, year on year, in an effort to placate the minorities living amongst us.

Is it any wonder that a few raise their voices and boo.