With no anthem, taking the knee loses its meaning here
The torturous dilemma about whether or not to take the knee returns this weekend for Wilfried Zaha, who is likely to make his first start for Crystal Palace since describing the gesture as “degrading”. Three weeks on from the striker’s comment, reminders of the pre-match ritual’s dwindling impact are seldom far from the surface. Derby County are the latest club to refuse to take part, following the example of Brentford and Bournemouth. In each case, the justification is that the exercise has lost its relevance through repetition, to the point where it becomes purely symbolic.
There is a palpable sense of players’ hearts not being in it any longer, and it is by no means restricted to football. In the Six Nations, the starting XVS of Italy, France, Wales and Ireland resist any involvement, while England’s half-baked efforts expose only an awkward chasm between the kneelers and non-kneelers.
How, we need to ask, has it come to this? When Colin Kaepernick popularised his now globally-recognised protest in 2017, the effect across the United States was incendiary, with the President condemning the quarterback and his fellow dissenters as “sons of bitches”. The vicepresident, to no one’s knowledge an NFL fan, was sent with a full Secret Service detail to an Indianapolis Colts game, purely so that he could be seen indignantly leaving early. “I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our flag, or our national anthem,” Mike Pence tweeted, in orchestrated outrage.
In the UK, by contrast, taking the knee has tended to fall flat. To see how patchily observed it is today is to wonder at how detached it has grown from any attainable objectives, beyond a generic statement about the perniciousness of racism. At Queens Park Rangers, Les Ferdinand, a passionate anti-racism campaigner, has likened its gradual watering-down to the fate of “Clap for Carers”, which began with the noblest of intentions but quickly ran its course. But is this lack of a clear goal the only problem? Not long after Zaha delivered his rebuke to the act, dismissing it as “something we just do”, I received a letter from Colin Wynter QC, a prominent black City barrister, who highlighted how it is also unfolding without the backdrop that gave it such explosive force across the Atlantic.
“In the UK, there is no national anthem played other than before international football matches,” he writes. “Premier League and Championship kneeling thus takes place stripped of any context. By itself, kneeling is an act of submission and subjugation. As a black man, I have hated to see it.”
This reaches to the heart of the point that Zaha was seeking to make, that he had been instilled from childhood with a belief that as a young black man he should stand tall, not feel compelled to assume what Wynter defines as “the most submissive position (other than supine) that a man could take”.
For Kaepernick, kneeling was carefully chosen for its symbolism, as the human equivalent of a flag being flown at half-mast while the Stars and Stripes fluttered overhead. He chose not to sit after Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret, explained to him that this would spark profound resentment among the numerous troops fighting for the flag. By taking the knee instead, he could, or so he thought, shine a light on police brutality against African-americans while distancing himself from a fervid debate about any perceived lack of patriotism.
Zaha grew up in a very different sporting culture to Kaepernick. In the US, there is a convention even at little-league baseball games to play The Star-spangled Banner and to wrap oneself in the red, white and blue, with any deviation from that norm treated as borderline seditious. But in the UK, there is none of the same superimposing of national pride upon domestic sport. As such, taking the knee before a Premier League match occurs devoid of any of the context that would invest it with wider meaning. Worse, for Zaha there is a discomfort at being pressured to take a stance that he has been taught to regard as subservient.
It is difficult, in all honesty, to see the practice lasting much longer. Nuno Espirito Santo, the Wolves manager, said this week that he would continue taking the knee alone if he had to do so, arguing that the process was incremental, that the effect of such action would be seen “through time”. And yet the exact opposite seems to be happening. With each week that passes, there is a decline in the observance and a dilution of the message.
Sadly, this has ceased to be the rousing gesture of conscience it was originally designed to be. Wynter, as he explains in his letter, believes that Zaha’s opposition represents a breaching of the dam wall. Not that it will be easy. “Now that Zaha has spoken up, one can expect a growing number of black players to stand tall instead of kneeling,” he says. “The white players who, like the black players, are all young men, will not have a clue what to do. Stand and face criticism, even allegations of racism, or kneel simply for a quiet life. That presents them with an unconscionable dilemma. The sooner the whole thing is brought to an end, at the initiation of senior black players like Wilfried, the better.”
Racial inequities are universal, of course, but taking the knee appears increasingly to be a misconceived attempt to roll them back here. It is supposed to be empowering, but for Zaha and many others, it feels demeaning and tokenistic. After almost nine months of diminishing returns, that is the last look that the fight against racism needs.
‘Kneeling is an act of submission and subjugation. As a black man, I hated to see it’