Don't Take The Knee, Stand Up and Fight

By Marlon Kameka

The anniversary of George Floyd’s murder led to several UK based organisations calling for all anti-racists to take the knee. However, Black people should examine the optics behind actions we are asked to participate in, often without question, and often to our own detriment. 

Getting down on one knee is usually saved for praying, when you propose marriage to your partner or when you get knighted by the queen. I have done none of the above, although I’m sure one day I will be in the New Year’s Honours List for services to running my mouth(!) One thing I never will do, is take the knee for Black Lives Matter. 

Now, this article is not here to condemn genuine and committed anti-racists; the ones who understand that solidarity is a verb not a noun. It’s here to warn Black people about the optics of unconsciously partaking in particular acts that have been relentlessly pushed to the masses. For example, chanting or wearing ‘I Can’t Breathe’ t-shirts or allowing white people to lead Black focused movements are just two of a plethora of other occurrences which are detrimental to us as Black people.

This article is also here to caution us all about the increasing number of fake, fraudulent grifters who have been using the anti-racist movement to serve themselves rather than the people or to gaslight us, and to an extent themselves, into believing they are helping to eradicate racism when they truly aren’t. 

Subconsciously, what are we as Black people telling ourselves when we feel compelled to take the knee? The optics of seeing or being a Black individual who engages in these acts reinforces the well-worn debilitating stereotype of Black people being docile, passive, and submissive. It looks like we are begging white people to save and liberate us. The optics of us on our knees and the racist white man towering over us doesn’t emit strength or power. Additionally, we must be aware of the messages we are sending the younger generation of Black youths who look up to us to offer them guidance and strength. It is our responsibility to ensure we never allow them to believe they are inferior to the racist white man. 

Seeing Black people on their knees begging ‘massa’ for a few rotten crumbs makes me nauseous. We as Black people spent hundreds of years doing this either through force, fear, or desperation. And it got us nowhere. It is time for innovative and radical tactics that will work in the current climate. African Americans took the knee during the Civil Rights protests, but that was during the 1960’s. It is now 2021. We can learn from our ancestors but must modernise and strengthen our approaches to the challenges we face. 

We no longer need to be subservient to any white person. Black people exclusively relying on white people to give us freedom, justice and equality is futile. Never believe the false narrative that we need white people’s permission to gain liberation. This has been propagated by the white racist for centuries in order to keep us subjugated. Black people need to get off their knee, walk towards freedom and take it with both hands. Because the racist white man is never going to give it to us. 

Healthy conversations, debates, and disagreements about how we achieve freedom, justice and equality are necessary and important. We must question everything we consume and produce. Black people must not fall into the trap of groupthink. 

Conversely, white people seeking social media attention, or believing they can solve racism in an afternoon before going home to upload their performative pics whilst infiltrating black movements is something that Malcom X warned us about.  

White people taking the knee just looks lazy. It’s a passive, vacant and simplistic way that the individual can look like they are doing more than they really are. Empty gestures such as taking knees, posting black squares, info graphics and cliched quotes, which insincere individuals and capitalistic corporations have revelled in this past year, have been plentiful but have also failed to be backed up with immediate and significant actions which provide substantial change and progress.  

These are movements, not moments, nor hashtags or trends that need to be jumped on by people chasing clout. But when you have no experience of being an activist or have no genuine affinity to a cause, your main priority will be doing whatever it takes to garner online and financial gratification. White people have been the main beneficiaries of capitalism, so we should not be surprised when white people choose to capitalise from Black people. They have done this with our art, our music, our natural resources, and our bodies. And they will continue to do this until we find the strength and vernacular to call them out. 

This virtue signalling, that has become prominent during the last year, again centres the wrong person at the core of the discussion and not the people these individuals claim to support. Its demeaning, minimising and makes a mockery out of the trauma that black people have endured for 450 years. Whether its viral videos of police brutality against black people, dismissive attitudes made by white commentators on television panel shows, or white people thinking they are experts on racism; I’ve often said Black pain equals white entertainment. And this social media performative activism is just another incarnation of that.

I don’t trust any white person who declares they are anti-racist unless they have the receipts and evidence to prove they have actively and are currently implementing changes that work towards deconstructing racism. 

If you as a white person genuinely care more about liberation and equity for Black people than you do about the number of likes and followers you have, then here’s an easy and accessible list I compiled of what you can do to back the movement; Donate. Support. Amplify. Educate.

Donate: Give your time, resources, or money to grassroot organisations that support and empower Black people. 

Support: Challenge racism, both covert and overt, whenever you see or hear it. Promote and buy from Black businesses. Push your workplace, education institutions, council, and MPs to focus more on provisions for and about black people. Keep a safe and open dialogue for the Black people in your life. 

Amplify: Provide a space or platform for Black voices to be heard. 

Educate: Teach yourself, your children, family and friends about Black history and Black figures, with an emphasis on Black British individuals and events. Read books, watch videos, attend seminars, download podcasts, and listen to black people when they discuss racism even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

The above is a basic but effective way to start your journey as an active anti-racist. And you can use the four components to question how many you, a person you know, your workplace or educational institution fulfil over a period of time. However, the list does come from the perspective of a cis-gendered Black man, and it is of vital importance that your activism includes all intersections of Blackness. 

During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, I saw a video online of the London crowd encouraging a police officer to take the knee. Reluctantly, he eventually did and most of the crowd cheered and applauded him. But why were these protesters so thrilled by this passive display of camaraderie? The police officer is still going to stop and search Black people nine times more than he does their white counterparts. The police officer is still going to work for an organisation that is institutionally racist. We need structural changes not symbolic gestures. And we as Black people must demand more and stop settling for empty platitudes especially from the very people who are subjugating us. 

As a white individual, if you were truly serious about being an active anti-racist, rather than taking a knee or posting a black square, maybe you need to look closer to home for ways you can address the racism that exists within your vicinity. Examine your colonised workplace and educational practices, educate your older family members who have little, if any, contact with Black people, condemn your white friends who make racist jokes when they are drunk, expose your best friend who has a fetish for sex with Black people and, most importantly, question yourself to see if you hold any anti-Black sentiments. By choosing not to do any of this, you are upholding the very structures you claim you want to dismantle.

Education doesn’t take place exclusively in schools, but it is one place to start. If we genuinely want substantive change in this country, it will require a complete decolonisation of the education structure. There are currently two petitions that address this. Change.org have over 296,000 signatures for their ‘Make Black British History Compulsory in Schools’ which you can still sign here.

The UK Parliament petition reached 268,000 signatures for its ‘Teach Britain’s colonial past as part of the UK’s compulsory Curriculum’. The government’s official response was ‘...we do not believe there is a need to take this action as the option to teach this topic exists within this compulsory theme.’ Emphasis on the word ‘option’. 

Based on findings released by the BBC, between 2017-2018 there were 496 temporary exclusions for racism in primary schools in England. That’s a rise of 40% on 2006-2007. As no child is born racist, these children are being taught racism at home from their parents or carers. Therefore, unless the government intervenes and provides all children with anti-racist classes and makes it mandatory to teach Black British history, which doesn’t centre exclusively on the enslavement of Black people, this problem will continue and no amount of taking the knee will change this. 

Evidently, the Conservative government has no desire to do this. Therefore, it is imperative that we as anti-racists take ownership of this task and ensure that we and the people around us are informed and educated. Ignorance is a choice not an excuse. 

I want people reading this to be energised to make a tangible and substantive change that is not dormant and does not focus on self-gratification. Think about it; a person literally cannot move when they take the knee. It’s a static and stagnant visual stance when we need to be engaging in forceful and direct action. 

If you, as a white person, do decide to take the knee, before you get dirt on your jeans, I would ask yourself; what do you feel this act is going to achieve? Are you doing this for social media likes and online approval for your ‘activism’? Is this a primitive way to absolve your guilt? What other anti-racist measures are you regularly engaging with? How is this symbolic gesture going to end racism?

As for Black people, if none of the above has resonated with you then there’s not much more I can do. But what I would say is STOP PRAISING WHITE PEOPLE FOR DOING THE BARE MINIMUM! White people can take the knee, but then they get up and carry on with their lives. But for Black people, the knee is on our necks, both figurately and literally, and it won’t come off until we acknowledge it and take decisive and proactive action.

Freedom for Black people will not come from white people. Only we can free ourselves. We have been on our knees for centuries, it’s time we stand up and fight.

- Marlon Kameka

Marlon can be found on Instagram and Twitter here