True to their word, the UK team took a knee ahead of its game against the U.S. Men’s National Team at the World Cup in Qatar. But many are commenting on the remarkable fact that the U.S. team remained standing.
Last weekend, England signaled that its players intended to take a knee to protest Iran’s ongoing oppression on its LGBTQ community, its recent assault on women, not to mention the strict Islamic sharia law suppressing of its people.
Some supporters of England’s act of taking a knee found the incident startling because taking a knee as protest was invented in the U.S., yet the U.S. team did not take a knee on Friday.
Social media users were shocked over the U.S. team’s decision not to kneel along with their British opponents.
Still, others saw the act as just another example of empty virtue signaling:
Granted, England’s taking a knee is rather empty when compared to the actual members of Iran’s team, all of whom have risked serious punishment by their country’s leaders for refusing to sing the Iranian national anthem at the World Cup.
The Iranian players have risked jail, or even torture and execution by standing up against their own country’s civil rights abuses.
Compared to that, England’s taking a knee seems a little less noteworthy.
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