Genuflecting is in the news—football players, mainly black ones, “taking a knee” during pre-game playing of the National Anthem. The most recent example, from this Sunday: teams kneeling before the anthem, and being booed anyway–NFL fans booed players for kneeling before national anthem and standing for it | NFL players tried to show support for the cause while not disrespecting the flag, but fans booed anyway, by Taylor Link, Salon.com, October 1, 2017. ] What’s up with that?
I can only give a personal take on this—not, I’m aware, a thoroughly American take.
I am an American, a citizen for fifteen years now, and very glad to be one; but I grew up elsewhere, in a monoracial country—England had few blacks, in just a few areas, until I was well into my teens. I came here as an adult, 28 years old. So I don’t see the American racial scene the way born Americans see it and grow up with it.
To an outsider like me, one very striking thing about that scene was the deep, hungry yearning among most white Americans to think well of blacks.
After the Civil Rights reforms of the sixties, there was a widespread sentiment that with the injustices of the past set aside, we ought to be able to get to a place where we would be all citizens together, equal under the law and regarding each other in a spirit of equality. It might take a few years (people felt) and need some temporary remedies—Affirmative Action, contract set-asides, and so on—but we should get there, and be a united, reasonably harmonious nation by, oh, the year 2000, for sure.
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