Tagged: Taking a knee

I’ll bet there are some other old folks, like me, who were confused as to what Colin Kaepernick was doing when he went down on one knee during the national anthem. First and foremost, we associate going down on one knee with proposing marriage. Besides that, most of us know that, as genuflection, it is used in various Christian denominations for saluting a high-ranking churchman, the Blessed Sacrament, etc. Also, as Wikipedia tells us, when the folded flag of a deceased veteran is offered to a seated family member, the presenting officer will go down on his left knee, which some of us have witnessed.

Thus to us oldies, going down on one knee signifies supplication, humility, reverence, obeisance, respect. This symbolism of going down on one knee dates from at least medieval times. Before Colin Kaepernick came along, this was understood. E.g., when football player Tim Tebow does this on the field, he has said, he is praying, which is in line with the historic interpretation.

What Kaepernick meant by going down on one knee was not respect, the announcers and commentators explained, but rather disrespect. Most people would think that the opposite of standing up to show respect is remaining seated, indicating disrespect and rejection, but to Kaepernick, the opposite is going down on one knee. He himself seems to have originated this reverse meaning, which means that he is also rejecting the understanding of the gesture for hundreds of years, for many types of peoples and places and contexts. That’s a lot of rejection. He reminds me of Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.””

Many people have now imitated the gesture, especially other football players. Apparently they believe that doing so indicates solidarity with black people in the fight against racism. Well, not to discourage folks from acting on their beliefs, but going down on one knee because one person did it is just dumb. There is a word for those who follow a person blindly, without considering the implications: lemmings. It would have made more sense if everyone had done what I and many other oldies did, which was to roll our eyes and sigh at such ignorance. This includes, I believe, most old black veterans, who despite all they had to put with by being black nevertheless remain patriotic and thus did not like this young whippersnapper’s showing such disrespect for the flag and for his county.

That said, I, and I believe most other oldies, would not have been in favor of his being fired or suspended. Rather, his coach and his general manager should have sat him down privately, preferably in the company of his parents, and read him the riot act. His parents have made a public statement of support for their son’s action, but they may still have thought it a bewildering move. I wonder if at first even they comprehended what their son was implicitly saying.

The team management should have allowed him to continue to “take a knee” (as apparently they did), but they should be maintaining to this day that they were opposed to his doing so and – just to underscore the point – they should have pointed out what this shows about Kaepernick’s grasp of what going to one knee signifies and beyond that, of what football is supposed to be about. Football is not a representation of our national life, no matter how hard coaches and boosters strive to convince us that kids are going to be molded into worthy adults by playing team sports. (That can happen, but it is a side effect; football is really about winning and glory and exaltation of the ego, not to mention, for professional sports teams, garnering the big bucks.)

I had heard even before the one-knee incident that Kaepernick is a difficult person, that his teammates find him not too simpatico. So I think that he did the one-knee thing (when he formerly just remained seated) to show off but, we must generously allow, he was simply unaware of the historical significance of the gesture. Here we are informed by a relevant saying that my late first husband used to quote: never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. (For you cognoscenti, this has been termed a corollary to Occam’s Razor.) This cluelessness speaks volumes about the quality of his education and of his training to become a gentleman and a role model.

Here’s what I wish that he had said, let’s say during a Juneteenth speech: “Although I was raised in a good home by my beloved white adoptive parents, I nevertheless have had racial slurs directed at me at various times in my life. I resented those slurs, but I believe that actions speak louder than words and so I strove to give the lie to their slurs by my achievements. I hope that by my example of working hard and making good in the NFL, people will come to realize that black people are as deserving of respect as white people when they make an effort to live a useful and productive life. I urge young people, especially young black people, to rise above racism and show “the content of their characters” by their actions. Thank you and God bless America, despite its faults.”  That would have been so much more dignified, gracious, and patriotic  than what he did do.

So here we have it: one immature dope with a giant chip on his shoulder has changed a symbolic gesture from what the whole world understood it to be, all by himself. Well, not all by himself: all of those lemmings also did it who took up the gesture, who thought up excuses for the gesture, and who bought into the idea that if they criticized the gesture they are racists. They need to stop listening to Humpty Dumpty.