Taking the knee won’t cure SA’s race problem
Race-based policies of the past damaged not only sport, they damaged minds too.
Players ‘takes a knee’ in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on the first day of the first Test cricket match between England and the West Indies at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, southwest England on July 8, 2020. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / POOL / AFP)
Even diehard cricket fans may not have noticed the details in Saturday’s Solidarity Cup at Centurion. For the record, the Eagles won and AB de Villiers hit 60 off 24 balls to assure that victory.
AB in the runs, steering a team to a win … what is more South African than that?
Well, it was and it wasn’t. Saturday was the day the players, the officials – including Cricket SA’s director of cricket, Graeme Smith – and even the commentators “took the knee” to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
There were a few disgruntled white supporters afterwards, who felt the display was a craven bowing to a principle with which they disagree vehemently … and one which also supposedly ignores the murders of white farmers.
Some even threatened to abandon the game altogether which, according to their reasoning, would collapse the stadiums and the broadcasters through lack of support. In other words, if sport is not white enough, we won’t watch it.
And, right there, they confirmed that there is a race problem in South African sport – and not just cricket.
Race-based policies of the past damaged not only sport, they damaged minds too. And it’s going to take more than a knee to cure that.
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