England must not let booing fans win but taking a knee is no longer powerful - SQUIRES
The good folk of Middlesbrough did their best once they realised what was happening and drowned out the booing with applause but the damage was already done. The saboteurs inside the Riverside Stadium had made their feelings all too clear on England’s players taking the knee.
They don’t care for it and they don’t mind who knows.
Gareth Southgate was generous enough to put the booing down to a lack of understanding about what kneeling is about but England’s black players involved in Wednesday night’s game must have listened with sinking hearts.
The apologists who frame their actions as legitimate opposition to the political wing of the Black Lives Matter movement are playing games.
Football has regularly made it clear that taking the knee has nothing to do with any organisation, nor is it some nonsensical conspiracy to elevate the value of a black life above that of a white life. The gesture is simply about highlighting racial injustice in the hope a train will be set in motion to bring about an end to it.
