Although Boris Johnson refused to condemn the fans, that doesn’t detract from the bravery of the England footballers
Booooo! As has become their ritual, England’s footballers took the knee this weekend. And as has become their ritual, a section of the England fans, newly permitted to congregate at stadiums post-pandemic, took the opportunity to barrack those for whom taking the knee has become a statement, a gesture of belonging, solidarity and a token of faith.
If you ask those who take the knee why they do so, I am sure the reasons will differ. Some are black players who want to challenge the perception that their status as sporting superstars protects them from the realities of being black in Britain, in a white-dominated country, in a white-dominated sport. They have always felt it; taking the knee allows them to articulate it.
Some are young black sportsmen who want to show that whatever their own exalted fortunes, their existence within the bubble of elite sport does not blind them to the realities of what life is like for those outside that bubble, who can’t walk safely, who can’t get jobs, who don’t have futures, who have police officers ram their knees on to their necks.
Some are not black but bond day in and day out with those black men and want to support them. Some may just have become part of the ritual and see no harm in it.
But I guess the reasons for the booing are also myriad. Football crowds trample on niceties almost as a matter of faith. It is an achievement when any minute’s silence is observed and completely predictable when an anthem is booed or a player or manager abused for appearance or perceived proclivities. So this booing does not take the nihilists who go to international matches outside their comfort zone. But still, the booing episodes do tell us something about where we are in Britain post-Black Lives Matter, post-George Floyd, mid-pandemic.
One could dismiss this as a football terraces thing, but I suspect it is the sharp end of something that’s happening more widely in society. I think we have reached the point in the race in Britain debate where a section of white establishment Britain is saying: “That’s it. We have heard your plight and George Floyd was terrible and yes, perhaps you do need a few more jobs and we can do that, but you keep going on about it and you are making us feel responsible and uncomfortable: we have heard you, but we have heard enough.”
Six months ago the pollsters Opinium asked people what they thought about BLM and were told that 55% of adults polled believed BLM had increased racial tension. Since then Boris Johnson and the Spectator/Telegraph nexus, clearly recognising the symptoms and benefits to them of fear and compassion fatigue, have played on those misgivings. The manoeuvre has underpinned their culture attacks and continues to guide their thinking on contentious issues such as free speech and contested statues.
Indeed, true to type, just hours after the latest outburst of booing, when others were soul searching, the prime minister’s spokesperson pointedly refused to condemn the booing. Of course he did: for where there are boos, there are votes, as far as he is concerned. A man who mined cheap laughs with references to black “piccaninnies” and “watermelon smiles” couldn’t credibly do anything else.
But this is where the reactionary force meets the resolute object.
Because, despite the boos, despite the culture-war attacks, there is still no indication that those who want or choose to take the knee, or those in wider society who believe it is right to question the skewed narrative told through conduits such as statues in the public realm – a public realm that, incidentally, we as black Britons and taxpayers help to fund – are ready to have their campaigns shut down and see their momentum halted.
