Saga of 'Take A Knee'

"Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream, we take a knee". ~Martin Luther King, Jr.



So my twitter feed has been inundated with the saga of 45 and the USA National Football League (NFL).  Before this last week I could tell you very little about the NFL, except it ain’t like British football! 
Khan, Trump supporter, linking arms with his 'take a knee' players


I also knew that this ‘take a knee’ business begun with someone called Kaepernick; I assumed he was a player in a major league, have no idea.  I also know that his parent identified herself on twitter as 'the mother of one of the sons of bitches' referred to by 45.

But wait did Minnesota Lynx not take on the issue of police brutality over a year ago? Whoever spoke about that?

 But thanks to 45 this ‘taking a knee’ business which has been on the periphery, and hardly considered outside of the US has been forced centre stage.  It is even being linked to astrology and the Games of thrones! Today one of my Facebook friends pointed out that:

Saturn moves into Capricorn at the end of the year (for the next almost-three years), but I feel like we're starting to see signs of it already, as Capricorn rules the knees:

"On Friday evening at an Alabama political rally, Trump called for [NFL] team owners to fire those "sons of bitches" who kneel while the anthem plays at the start of games."

Not to mention the Game of Thrones "bend the knee" theme from the season that recently ended.

Does that mean that 'winter is here' and will last for three years - taking us to the end of the Mad King's reign?

But seriously, this 'take a knee' saga is not insignificant.  

This weekend in London, in defiance of 45, twenty-five players from both the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens took to one knee during the US national anthem before their match at Wembley. Players and officials, including Jaguars franchise owner Shahid Khan, linked arms to lodge their protest at the White House and at police brutality.

Forty-five has apparently enlivened a whole new audience to the League, given the British response to the game in London at the weekend, including me. 

Still 45 continues to grumble about the NFL on Twitter, but he's bitten off more than he can chew: not only players, but Republican team owners, who in 'real life' supported and funded 45, come out against him.  Self interest and the bottom line trumps 45! Capitalism wins out in the end. 

 Meanwhile, North Korea talks up above-ground nuclear testing, the Affordable Care Act repeal hangs on a knife’s edge and Puerto Rico remains in desperate straits.

 Forty-five says that ‘taking the knee has nothing to do with race’. He knows and we know that is untrue. It has everything to do with race, a 4-letter word that continues to plague and consume a nation and is testimony to its worse infringements of justice, civil and human rights.




Amid 45's NFL war - photos of Martin Luther King Jr 'taking a knee' resurface. 

King's daughter Bernice said "the real shame and disrespect is that decades after the first photo, racism STILL kills
people and corrupts systems".






And finally 'take a knee' arrives in Congress as Texas Representative bends a kneel in the House to honour the First Amendment. 

 Don't give up on the mission you sports men and women of every hue and shade. Lets hope that others will be unafraid and join you. This  NFL/'Take a Knee' issue is the latest incarnation of peaceful protest for civil rights, for which the whole of America should fight.  John Kennedy famously said:

 "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

For me, there is something even more disquieting and unsettling in Martin Luther King's words about justice rolling down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. Think about it.

 And still, I do believe that the Trump's Presidency will herald a time of significant change and progress in the United States; it is always darkest before dawn.

                                    ~


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