When I first heard of taking a knee, I thought to myself: “whose knee? Take it where?”
And I was reminded of Spike Milligan’s version of, “I left my heart in San Francisco”:
I left my heart in San Francisco,
I left my knees in old Peru.
I left my little wooden leg
Hanging on a metal peg,
And my eyeballs I gave to you.
I left my teeth on Table Mountain,
High on a hill they smile at me.
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
There won’t be much left of me.
I don’t know why the saying irritates me so profoundly, but it does. Why can’t people say, “I knelt”? Is it because “I knelt” evokes echoes of Christianity which today, as everyone knows, is a thinly disguised euphemism for white colonialism?
Like or not, though, those who take their knees are performing an act of religious obeisance to a god: the god of conspicuous righteousness in this case.
Here we have some police men and women who have taken their knees, not to old Peru, but downtown Toronto to show everyone that social distancing isn’t as important as they claimed when they handed out tickets to people getting together for reasons other than demonstrating on behalf of black lives matter.
It’s a lovely image: heads bowed in reverence, cameras clicking, fists raised, CBC microphone at the ready, poised to capture any whispered pieties.
I consider this just more popular hysteria and histrionics. I’ll simply ignore it. I don’t attend street activities involving large crowds anyway; I’m too well aware from past experience how even the most seemingly peaceful protest can turn nasty in the blink of an eye.
I genuflect in church, thanks very much.
Oh, and I did once kneel to ask my wife for her hand in marriage.
That was 40 years ago. So far, so good!
By the way, seeing the police act in a wholly impartial and unprofessional manner at one of these protests does nothing for my trust or confidence in their ability to uphold the law.
That the officers could do this, and their superiors tolerate it, is simply unconscionable.
The mob will still burn the place down.
Some will continue to protest for a while; others just watch the daily news on the TV.
Actually, you make a good point.
Wonder when this will fizzle out as these “movements” inevitably always do? Anyone remember “Occupy” or, for that matter, “Extinction Rebellion”?
Didn’t think so.
If the National Leader, in this case the Prime Minister of Canada, can ‘take the knee’ on Friday, June 5, 2020, (the critical issue of social distancing aside), why not on Thursday, June 4, 2020, the 31st anniversary of Tiananmen Massacre, which was quietly observed by its lamenting Mothers in PRC besieged Hong Kong, express support of unlawfully detained Canadians in their hundreds in PRC; and in support of democracy seeking Hong Kong
All things’ being equal, as June 6,1944 signifies.
Yet, members of the Democrat Party and MSM USA made the egregious moral equivalence between Tiananmen Square and Lafayette Square,while PRC recently discriminated against Blacks in PRC; a fact wholly lost on the CCP-WHO`s Ethiopian “Doctor`Tedros.
Perhaps these are questions to be posed to Victor Gao, English translator for Deng Xiaopeng, on Wednesday, June 10, 2020 ‘Munk Debates’, 8 – 9pm ET (aired online).
The question is:Will he be answering for Prime Minister Trudeau