Speech is important discussion is important, as long as it's approached honestly. That isn't to say all opinions have equal merit and all opinions are acceptable. That's not just in terms of racism by the way, their are boundaries to taste and decency regardless. We all have those red lines. Now the reality is, if you value your own desire to not see players take the knee as more important than the fight for racial equality, your a bit of a d*ck at a minimum. If you have a misunderstanding of the facts influenced by deceiving and disincentivising social media campaigns then you are somewhere between gullible and stupid, and if you just oppose change then your a bigot, and if you don't want people that are different from you to have a fair crack at life then your a racist. Give or take a bit of nuance that sums this up (again).
I would engage with them and ask why it offends them.
I would engage to understand why. The point with booing is that you cannot engage with a primal sounds, it's the opposite of engaged debate. It's debating for toddlers. The fact some black people don't agree with it is neither here nor there, there has never been a movement for change in history with 100% support. It's an irrelevance that some people don't support it.
Well I agree, which is why I wouldn’t boo. I still don’t believe that everyone that boo’s is inherently racist though, nor the collective act , just my opinion.
As I said earlier, the sentiment I’ll always agree with, that would never leave me. I just have major doubts in the way the movement and specifically the BLM organisation operates, and there’s plenty of valid reasons that should be talked about. There’s a lot of black people that also agree with that, and they are not irrelevance, whether they’re the minority or not. People have the right to oppose it, regardless of colour, Assuming they’re opposing it for what I believe are valid reasons and not just racism.
That’s all I really have to say on it. When it comes to the sentiment, I’m on your side, always will be. I’m from a very diverse family, through birth and marriage into the family, so I’m certainly not someone that tolerates racism of any kind, I understand it exists, always will sadly. Nor am I opposed to tackling it. I’m just not sure we are on the right path, as stated in the previous paragraph. in my opinion, finding racism abhorrent doesn’t mean I have to think all those booing are just racist. I don’t think it’s that simple, Even though I’m sure some of them are.
the truth is there’s no right answers. As I’ve said before, Other antiracism campaigns in sport have never met such a backlash. This one clearly has, it’s polarising for various reasons. And I believe it’s because the knee gesture has a lot of connection with a specific organisation that plenty of people have some doubts about. That’s why I think there could’ve been a different way of going about it to put across the same (great) message, but without that connection, And maybe it wouldn’t have been met with such hostility, like other campaigns in the past.
blacklivesmatter.uk
Official Twitter Account for Black Lives Matter UK - for all those interested: https://twitter.com/ukblm?lang=en