If you happen to have been reading, oh, literally any other Irish media outlet, except perhaps the Sunday Times, over the last week, you will have encountered one perspective, and one only, on the question of footballers “taking the knee” before the kick-off of their European Championship matches. It is, you have been endlessly told, a “harmless gesture in opposition to racism”, and fans should “stand in solidarity” with the players.
Which begs the question: Why shouldn’t fans be kneeling too?
Why stand in solidarity when they can all kneel?
Logically, taken to its conclusion, that is what they should all be doing. Kneeling is, after all, as we are endlessly told, just a harmless gesture expressing support for anti-racism. It costs nothing. It takes just a second of your time. It shows everybody where you stand, and what you believe, and that you are a good person. So, in a way, are we not all suspect if we choose not to kneel, at the appropriate time?
The way to approach this, of course, is to wonder what the Press would say or write about a lone England player who, like the fans, refused to kneel? Would their individuality be respected, and their choice accepted without question? Or would that player be expected to answer multiple questions about why they were choosing not to kneel, and to provide a written explanation, preferably on social media, about their choice? When you start asking that question, you might quickly come to the conclusion that for many players, kneeling might not be an expression of their support for anti-racism, as much as it is an expression of their support for not being personally hounded by ideologues in the media.
And that paradox is at the heart of the decision of many fans to boo the kneeling. Fans can see it, even if the allegedly smarter people in the press cannot.
Because for many of us, kneeling is not a gesture of anything but submission. You kneel, after all, in a church. Or in front of a King or Queen. The whole point of going down on a knee is to indicate that you submit to a higher authority. And, of course, the gesture was originally popularised by an American Footballer, who wanted to protest his own country’s national anthem by kneeling as it was sung. Footballers do not kneel during the anthem, but fans know where the gesture came from, and what it was originally intended to mean.
And what other means do they have, to express their disapproval? Do they write letters to the Times, or have their politicians raise it in the national parliament? They are, after all, paying customers. If they wish to make a point about the conduct of their national team, what other venue do they have, other than booing?
Booing is not even something that the press usually objects to. If fans were to boo, for example, during a Manchester United game in protest at the club’s owners, the Press would be eager to amplify those boos and say that the voice of the fans is important, and that – this phrase may be familiar to those who followed the super league saga – “football belongs to the fans”.
Players who take the knee are – officially at least – exercising their right to free speech. Fans who boo it are doing the same.
That leaves us with the question as to why so many of us find the taking of a knee insulting to begin with.
In part, of course, it is precisely because it is such a meaningless gesture. Millionaire footballers are not going to solve racism by kneeling down. No child is ever going to watch a game of football and decide “well, I thought racism was cool, but then England kneeled down, and I see the error of my ways”. As gestures go, it is empty, and ineffective. It is much more about signalling their goodness to people who already believe racism is bad. It is not a “be like us”, message. It is a “we are like you” message, directed not at football fans, but the poison pens in the press gallery, and online, waiting to tear apart a player who does not conform.
The point of it, in other words, is to show everyone else how good and righteous they are. Not to change a single mind. In that respect alone, it is nauseating.
Fans are entirely within their rights to boo it. It is safe to say that this time next year, taking the knee will be a thing of the past, for one of two reasons: Either the fans will drive them to stop, or, much more likely, the kind of people who think “taking the knee” matters will have come up with some new hoop for footballers to jump through to prove their virtue. It is not, after all, about changing anything. For many people, today, getting people to take the knee, or whatever comes next, is about exercising their power over others and forcing them to submit. This time next year it might be about wearing an armband, or a rainbow pin, or getting a tattoo. And when it is, fans should boo that nonsense, too.