Breitbart South African cricketer Quinton de Kock dropped out of a World Cup game after the team was ordered to take the knee for Black Lives Matter (BLM), but has since felt obliged to issue a humiliating public recantation of his actions.
Quinton de Kock, who is white, chose to withdrawn from a game against the West Indies after his sportās national governing body, Cricket South Africa, ordered players to ātake a kneeā before all of its scheduled matches. Previously, the decision to kneel had been up to individual players, but the CSA decided that the sight of some players kneeling while others stood had ācreated an unintended perception of disparity or lack of support for the initiativeā and took their choice in the matter away.
De Kock felt the need to reverse his stance entirely on Thursday, however, in an abject public statementĀ reportedĀ by Sky News.
āI would like to start by saying sorry to my teammates and the fans back home,ā the athlete grovelled, pleading that he now understood āthe importance of standing against racismā ā by kneeling down ā and āthe responsibility of us as players to set an exampleā.
āIf me taking a knee helps to educate others, and makes the lives of others better, I am more than happy to do so,ā he claimed.
āI did not, in any way, mean to disrespect anyone by not playing against West Indies, especially the West Indian team themselves. Maybe some people donāt understand that we were just hit with this on Tuesday morning, on the way to a game,ā he explained.
Perhaps trying to maintain some semblance of dignity, he added that āIf I was racist, I could easily have taken the knee and lied, which is wrong and doesnāt build a better societyā ā although taking a knee is in fact what he will now be doing.
Cricketer Quinton de Kock has pulled out of South Africa's T20 World Cup match against the West Indies after refusing to "take the knee".
Campaigner Ike Ijeh: "Taking the knee is a pointless performative political gesture. I would never take the knee."@TVKev pic.twitter.com/Nq4pCcLM5N
— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) October 27, 2021
Prior his perhaps understandable capitulation in the face of possible de facto expulsion from the World Cup and the effective end of his international career, de Kock had received support for his decision to literally take a stand from other corners of the British Commonwealth, including Great Britain itself.
Black British campaigner and former Brexit Party candidate Ike Ijeh, for example, hadĀ toldĀ talkRADIO that he āwould never take the kneeā himself, viewing it as a āpointless performative political gesture that will not in any way advance race relations.ā
āI think this is a terrible, appalling decisionā by Cricket South Africa, Ijeh said, adding that āthis kind of coercion has no place anywhere, particularly it has no place in sports.ā
South Africa Cricket Players Ordered to āTake the Kneeā Before Matches https://t.co/DQEfKQIWdb
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 26, 2021
