I was today years old when I learned that European footballers have been trying to “take a knee” to support anti-racism and Black Lives Matter. Inspired by Colin Kaepernick’s activism, kneeling during national anthems became quite a hot topic back in 2017 and 2018. Kaepernick was basically kicked out of the NFL because of his activism, and Donald Trump made endless comments about how athletes who kneel are unpatriotic garbage. Of course, Trump said all of that before his own supporters literally committed terrorist acts on the US Capitol building in what was one of the largest anti-democratic, unpatriotic insurrections in US history. The point is that kneeling became a hot-button issue, but more athletes are doing it now, especially after the Black Lives Matter mass protests worldwide last year. Guess who’s mad about it? White dudes. Even more specifically, Mike Tindall, a retired rugby player and son-in-law to Princess Anne.
Mike Tindall said he probably would not take the knee if he was still playing rugby for England because he does not ‘buy into’ the Black Lives Matter organisation. Princess Anne’s son-in-law said in an interview that he would instead take a stance against racism ‘in my own way’, insisting he does ‘support the fight against racism for sure’.
The former-England rugby star also said he is relieved he didn’t have access to social media as a teenager, saying he sympathises with cricketer Ollie Robinson, 27, who was suspended over racist and sexist tweets he posted nearly a decade ago. Mr Tindall said that while you ‘can’t condone what people have said’, it is ‘naive to think’ they cannot change – before admitting: ‘I would have said some stupid things when I was 18, without a shadow of a doubt.’
He also used his interview with the Daily Telegraph to pay tribute to the Royal Family for how ‘kind they’ve been’ welcoming him and his family in. He said: ‘I’ve always felt part of it, and I think that’s down to what an amazing woman the Queen is.’
Taking the knee as a symbol of anti-racism solidarity gained attention in American football in 2016 as players protested against police brutality and racism in the US. The act has since spread further and was adopted by football players in the UK partly to demonstrate that racism should not be tolerated in the sport. But there have been incidents of some sections of the audience booing players as they take the knee before games
Mr Tindall said: ‘I support the fight against racism for sure. Would I necessarily take the knee? Realistically, I don’t generally buy into the actual organisation of Black Lives Matter. If you read the website and go through it all. I just don’t like the organisation. So I would respect [the stance against] racism in my own way.’
When the athlete-kneeling thing began, it was endlessly discussed and adjudicated in the American media. I think the arguments for kneeling have reached a consensus that people are doing it to symbolize anti-racism, anti-police brutality and respect for a multicultural, multifaith and multiracial society. It took a while to get to that point here in America, and it doesn’t surprise me in the least that it’s still “up for debate” in the UK and Europe. It also doesn’t surprise me that a white guy adjacent to the Windsors is like “I don’t like Black Lives Matter, nope to all of that.” Mike Tindall sounds exactly like the kind of dude who reflexively mutters “All Lives Matter, bruv.”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
The cluelessness continues
The only thing missing from his interview was “all lives matter”
Mike Tindall is this person -> “I’m not racist and I totally am against racism. I just don’t want to actually do anything to get rid of racism like BLM is doing. BLM is making me uncomfortable with my white privilege and I don’t like that. I only support anti-racism that makes me feel good about myself.” which is so many people I know who try to rationalize their MAGA thinking whilst claiming not to be MAGA.
This!! All day and into tomorrow!
„I also don’t use the n word and have one black friend! See, very much not racist!”
Who cares what this flattened thumb thinks. That face has been flattened into the pitch, too many times, in a scrum. Most probably turn what little brains he had into mush. A punchable face with a roundhouse kick as a follow-up.
Very much not a racist family. Sure, Jan.
I will NEVER forget his and his wife’s faces during H&M’s wedding ceremony, when Bishop Curry was speaking. The faces, the eye-rolling, the whispers… Don’t tell me they’re not racists.
#neverforget
They were SO disrespectful.
A lot of people in the UK are actually clueless about taking the knee and BLM – the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was asked if he supported taking the knee in an interview and he was under the impression that it came from Game of Thrones and was a sign of subjugation. The England football team took the knee and got booed by their fans. The Scottish football team refused to do it and got criticised. And just yesterday, the government put out a report that said accusations of white privilege were why working class white children were doing badly at school and that too much time and money had been spent on ethnic minority pupils at their expense (basically, reverse racism).
I have no doubt that Mike was welcomed by the royal family with open arms – he’s sporty, outdoorsy and does non-threatening, non-political stuff like play golf and raise money for Parkinson’s research.
Right. Reverse racism is the problem. Not the economic disparity and the laws protecting corporations and business that allow them to take advantage of the working class.
If he doesn’t know about it then he just should have said that. Instead he said that he looked it up and decided “nah, I’ll just do my thing against racism.”
At the England-Scotland game at Wembley on Friday, both teams took the knee. There were a few boos but mostly cheers.
Modifying the famous 4 Stage Strategy from “Yes, Minister”
Racism doesn’t exist.
Maybe racism does exist, but we should do nothing about it. (<– Mike Tindall is here)
Maybe we should do something about racism, but there's nothing we CAN do.
Maybe there is something we could've done, but it's too late now.
Isn’t he the one that was caught cheating on Zara via a CCTV camera? For the life of me, I don’t know why his opinion matters. I suppose he’s another one wheeled out by the ‘very much not racist family’ Why he has views on sports people taking the knee is beyond me.
He is a professional (retired) athlete and professional athletes in Europe are no different than professional athletes in North America. The press just laps them up.
this is an *interesting family
*racist
He was caught cheating SHORTLY after marriage on CCTV, and again at least once that I recall. Sure, let’s all listen to this paragon of virtue.
How to say you are racist without telling me your racist. .White folks explaining how racism works to BIPOC without understanding the basics of struggle, history or protest.
A member of the royal family (even a married-in) won’t support BLM? I’m shocked!
I wish they had asked him “how” he was standing up to racism “in his own way.”
Apparently, by being colour blind.
I mean, he’s part of the family that bullied the single POC that family’s ever had back to her home country. Of course he doesn’t “buy into” that Black Lives Matter. He doesn’t think they matter.
So he doesn’t think black lives matter? That’s literally all they are saying.
Sadly he is an adult and still saying stupid things..
Whatever he is doing to stand up against racism, I guess it didn’t include being supportive within the family of the concerns of his cousin-in-law’s biracial wife… tells me all I need to know about how seriously he takes a stand. 😐
What is there to “buy into” exactly? It’s not a very difficult concept to grasp. I mean, it’s not like it’s a milk business in China!
@Avea.. I will guess that he follows Garage and other right wing nuts in UK. He doesn’t understand that the taking a knee and BLM synonymous.
But he actually read the website and went through it! He gets that racism is bad, but doing anything about inconveniences him. And besides, All lives matter, saying otherwise is divisive.
My god, how can you be this entitled, arrogant, and ignorant? Oh, right. By being a member of the BRF.
Sounds about White…..
As people were saying when this article came out, Meghan didn’t stand a chance in that family and Harry was right to get her and Archie out of there.
Think he also said that the RF has always been so welcoming to him, which is obviously a comment meant to contrast with Meghan’s version of her experience with the RF. If Mike Tindall is going to stubbornly cling to these ideas then it’s no wonder that Harry said they do not understand unconscious bias. They are so very far from understanding such bias and it’s honestly unlikely they ever will. Why would they?
every day harry and meghan’s decision to leave looks smart
I’m really tired of this dumb excuse that an eighteen-year-old isn’t capable of realizing racism is wrong. Really really tired. It’s a moving of the goalposts and a way to redirect the conversation away from making actual change in society.
I realized racism was wrong when I was a child because my parents walked me through not being rude to other people. It’s not a difficult concept.
There’s a song in an old musical called “You’ve got to be carefully taught” because racism isn’t something children or teenagers inherently feel. It’s something they have to be carefully taught by society. And they are. And that is the problem.
+1. This story is just, just awful and adds fuel to the fire that is burning down this family.
Further more, for the life of me WTF is so difficult in saying, “Yes, Black Lives Matter.” And leave it at that???
It’s good that your parents taught you to respect others no matter the difference from you, but not all parents do that. My parents only taught me that you are nice to their face, but behind closed doors say what you like. The “N-word” was commonplace in our 1970s home. I will never forget that my 6th grade teacher was Latino (Mr. Acosta, you were one of the best teachers I ever had) and after the first parent-teacher conference my mother was angry I hadn’t told her he was “a Mexican.” My growing up in that environment was a minefield and I am still coming to grips with it decades later.
Very much a racist family
And what is it exactly that is objectionable about BLM huh??
Nothing in my opinion. I have read their mission statement and think it’s good. My experience is that when people hear Black Lives Matter, they hear ONLY Black Lives Matter which is 100% not what is being said.
Actually a lot of the ‘urban sites’ i read dont like or support the BLM as an organisation,especially as it stands today. It has been taken over by greed which has affected its leadership and initial vision and mission. So i think Mike is latching on to that but did seem to want us to believe black lives matters to him.
Yeah Noki, because this dude is one of those guys that reads up on stuff like that.
*stares*
Hard disagree Noki and Judy. That is not the reason Mike Tindall is against BLM. I would bet money that this All Lives Matter cretin is against the progressive, Marxist-adjacent piece of BLM’s original purpose which challenges his status-quo existence and lifestyle.
I would agree wholeheartedly with Green Desert. You’re giving Mike Tindall way too much credit here.
Mike Tindall: “Yes, I support the fight against racism, but only if done so in a manner that is acceptable to me.” Great job, Mike, on demonstrating how to flex your white privilege and erase POC.
Ans THIS is exactly why I have always given him and his wife side eye. I will never forget the faces Zara made during H&M’s wedding. People made excuses for her saying it was because she was heavily pregnant and uncomfortable. I called it BS then and BS now. That entire family is trash. She married a racist lug headed athlete who fits right in with them.
I don’t know where to start so…Tindall gets a 100% total pass from me.
Americans aren’t even taught our own history – it is withheld from us, it is re-written and it is falsified. We are still learning it and even those of us who want to learn it have to actually try. At least Tindall is honest – I turned off an episode of Grantchester when, and this is horrifying, a bunch of white prostitutes in the 60’s in London were led in a civil rights chant by a black American woman character. WTAF?
When the Equal Protection Amendment to the Constitution was passed, which made African Americans equal, essentially gave them equal constitutional rights, the American South, led mainly by Sheriffs were like, don’t worry, we’ll never arrest anyone for killing a black person, that will never be a “homicide” no matter what those Washington-types tell us. Blacks will always be slaves to us, still less than a person/human and their lives don’t matter.
Then they went right out to prove a point and started publicly lynching black men for all kinds of things, without due process/a trial, practically the day after the amendment passed, invited the press, daring someone to stop them and no one did. This has graduated to publicly executing black men on camera and daring someone to stop them and no one is stopping them. It is literally a license to kill.
George Floyd’s brother mentioned E. Till and rightfully so – he was one of the first unfortunate victims of this backlash. It is even better when a non-cop executes a black man on the street, unprovoked (it reminds White men of slavery and they love that) -this murder can never be a “homicide” – Black lives can never be equal under the Constitution, so all money and resources are thrown at the killer to continue to ensure that blacks are not given Equal Protection. Black lives don’t matter, they aren’t even human.
Why would anyone in the UK understand this?
Many of us do. We are aware of the lynchings, the disproportionate number of black men on death row, Rodney King. The death of black people at the hands of cops in the USA is widely reported here.
It goes beyond just the US. The UK and many other countries who were colonizers have this exact problem. The BLM is just a way for those oppressed to have a way to speak up about this.
That’s an…interesting take. The UK has just aa much of a racist past as America – there’s is in fact LONGER. They benefited from the slave trade and colonization long before America even existed. So this idea that the UK is somehow removed from the narrative and history of white supremacy is ridiculous. Mike Tindall didn’t just land on Earth. And he certainly didn’t just land in 2021. And he’s grappling with the idea of equality and the fact that Black lives do in fact matter at his big age? He gets ZERO passes. And neither does any other white person in 2021.
WORD.
Oh, God, yes. If you read my above comment you see how I was raised. However, I cannot understand how anyone in 2021, who has lived, worked, studied, or socialized in this world can be so dismissive about racism today. If nothing else, Trump brought these racists out of the closet and into the light of day. We have seen who they are and what they want. I will never be able to unseen it now.
This is a horrible take. So you’re saying a black person’ s life is less important than his ignorance?
I’m not South African, but I know about apartheid. I’m not Jewish, but I know about the Holocaust. He wasn’t living in a remote village last year with no wifi and no TV. Black Lives Matter protests happened around the world.
It’s not difficult to say, racism is bad. He could even say, “I don’t know what it’s like to experience what these players experience. I havent walked in their shoes. I know they’re acting on their consciences and I respect that.” He didn’t say that because he doesn’t respect that. He didn’t even have to bring up BLM. No pass here.
The fact that this moron thinks that he should be the arbiter of the “right way” to speak out against racism is the epitome of white privilege and myopia. He’s towing the royal party line, which is white supremacy today, tomorrow, and forever. F him.
No. In this day and age when you can find extensive information on these issues, he does not get a pass. He is a racist, lazy asshole who would not even be listened to if not for the fact that he is married to an equally racist horse-faced Zara Phillips.
He should shut his mouth if he is too lazy or uninterested to find out the history behind BLM movement. The English are very aware of their history and role in slavery. They just don’t want to be reminded of it.
“I’m so glad I didn’t have access to social media before I had a media manager because you’d all have screenshots of all the racist sh*t I say!”
Somebody on twitter or Celebitchy called Sophie and Edward “stagehands” last week, and this description certainly applies to Mike and Zara. Who cares what this stagehand thinks about anything?
I can believe that the royal family is filled with racists and idiots. I just have trouble wrapping my head around the notion that even their PR/aides are so clueless and empty and old-fashioned. Who would let him say this now, after everything that has happened in the royal family?
These are the same type of guys who don’t support Me Too because they’re scared for the harassers and abusers with whom they sympathize.
THIS.
Those beliefs come as a “twofer”.
The beliefs are basically a complete lack of acknowledgement of the humanity of others. There is no such thing (that I’ve seen) as someone who wholeheartedly and sincerely supports survivors of sexual violence and understands the underlying dynamics but is racist. Also never met someone who is wholeheartedly anti-racist but thinks “most victims of sexual harms are lying”.
Sexual harms are about violence and power. So is racism. Twofer.
The entitlement it takes, as a white man, to think he gets to decide whether or not he “buys into” the “black lives matter organization.”
Severe undeserved entitlement. Peak caucasity.
this whole family should be chucked into a bin.
Well why would he respect BLM when he married into the OG white supremacists club?
…still saying stupid things for sure.
People rarely change – what he said at 18 is what he says (and believes) now…if not worse because we all know how racism ages so well.
How the other 51 nations of the Commonwealth don’t tell the RF to take a hike since they’re so appalled by taking a knee is beyond me.
What’s in it for them to stay? Seriously? Asking sincerely as a a 1/2 American who may not fully understand the ins and outs of the whole Commonwealth thing.
He’s a YOB. He’s proven it time and time again. How Zara could have married that racist lout is beyond me.
Because I’m sure she’s just as bored of racism as her elegant cousin is.
She’s not exactly a prize, herself.
Oaf & Oafette
I don’t “buy into” the monarchy. Nevertheless, it’s a fact, it exists. Like Black Lives Matter. It’s a fact. It’s not a belief. A belief is something like, “I don’t care what you think, you racist POS.”
I am going to steal this reply for the next time I need it. Perfection.
First off, f*ck this guy, and his racist imperialist family. Second, did we really think someone with ties to the BRF would be anything but a racist POS? god, I despise the BRF so much….their demise cannot come soon enough.
“Insisting he does ‘support the fight against racism for sure’.”
* If you’re against black people protesting inequality IN A PEACEFUL WAY, then no you don’t support “the fight.”
He sounds exactly like I would expect a member of this trash family to sound. Stay far away Sussexes
He’s so dumb he doesn’t even realize how much worse he’s making the Royal Family look. They’re trying and failing to not look racist and here he goes spouting racist crap while being totally oblivious to his own racism.
Seriously. Racists can’t get out of their own way can they?
Don’t really care for the guy but the BLM organization and website deserves constructive criticism. He’s not the guy to give it but they do need to make some changes as an organization they are disappointing. As a SM movement they do a great job of getting the word out but there is more they should and could be doing. About 5 or 6 years ago I went to their site to read their manifesto and it was a little lacking in concrete action. Then I saw that they had no programs listed and nothing on their donations or relief. Last year I checked the website again and was gobsmacked. According to their own website donations do not go back to the community, they still do not have national backed programs, no SMART goals. It was alarming. I get it as a hashtag social call but we have to move deeper than that and evolve. The organization is decentralized and they are proud of that but it explains why so many chapters have differing local messages, goals, etc. Money must me funneled directly to the community, they need to have actual community outreach programs and they need to become centralized.
Rich chubby white guy says what now? Also, the bob thing hanging from his belt – NO – tuck it in or don’t wear it.
This guy was involved in dwarf throwing, so… https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/sep/15/mike-tindall-dwarf-throwing
The only time the royal family admitted Meghan was being bullied by the public, they HAD to push Kate into the narrative as an equal victim. Because calling Kate lazy and saying she uses hair extensions is the exact same thing as a racist attack, I guess? I am not surprised by Tidall’s comments, because it seems that whole family believes racist attacks aren’t any different from calling someone lazy.
The fight against racism that white people want: “sir, could you please stop being mean to me? Pretty please”.
These people keep talking and they keep admitting what they are… I feel that this family is composed only by that annoying racist/sexist uncle you have to see at Christmas dinner. Can you imagine being in a table with them saying “I don’t buy into the BLM movement”… yikes
He has shared his opinion about people who probably are unaware who he is, and if they know of his existence, could care less of it. This resistance in some form started since 1619 without his help. Over sharing much.