Imagine you were vaguely important, let’s say the foreign secretary of a small island nation. But let’s also imagine you’re impossibly middle class, very little experience of what it might be like for the none privileged white people in society, and then this whole Black Lives Matter things comes along. It’s tricky, isn’t it? You don’t want to offend anyone, after all you’ll be dealing with a whole bunch of non-privileged non-white countries as foreign secretary, and you’ll be wanting to be making trade deals with them to replace those trade deals you negotiated away because BREXIT lives matter, too (apparently).

So here he is, Dominic Raab, our troubled little man. He’s on the radio and he’s asked about kneeling, that thing that people are doing now (even Premier League footballers!) to show support, to show Black Lives Matter. You start well, ‘I understand this sense of frustration…’ I mean, let’s get real here, precisely what frustration does he get? But, OK, he’s trying to empathetic, he even sounds ever so slightly annoyed on their behalf. ‘…And restlessness that drives the Black Lives Matter movement.’ Phew, a whole sentence in and it’s going quite well!

Now you’re feeling good, you’ve got this! Let’s crack on! ‘This whole taking a new thing, maybe it has a broader history …’

Hang on a minute, ‘maybe’? Did you say ‘maybe’? Are you not sure? Have you never heard of anyone taking a knee before? I mean ‘it has a broader history.’ So, we could back a bit, couldn’t we? Perhaps, as your foreign secretary, you’re occasionally asked to watch or read the news? Perhaps you need to be aware of issues our major ally, the USA, cares about, or at least its president? I’m not sure four years counts as ‘broader history,’ but well, it is in the past, so we could start there. Colin Kaepernick? NFL? Taking a knee?’ That son of a bitch,’ to quote President Trump. No? You’re not into sports, fair enough.

But you’re cocky, you know the world, you can find a reference to where you’ve seen this. Come on Raab, you can do this! ‘…But it seems to be taken from The Game of Thrones.’

Game of Thrones!!!! You actually said that.

Now, I’m not surprised that Dominic Raab wouldn’t know that one the earliest examples of ‘taking a knee’ was a University of South Carolina (American) footballer doing so to honour the memory of a coach. I’m not totally shocked that you haven’t heard of teams taking a knee as a moment of prayer and reflection. I’ve already accepted you’re not a sports guy.

But anyone can make a slip of the tongue, let’s see where you’re going with this.

‘It seems to me like a symbol of subjugation and subordination…’

Shall we try politics then? Civil Rights? Martin Luther King? Mean anything to you, sir? Are you saying you’ve never seen the famous image of MLK and other protesters taking a knee in Selma, Alabama in 1965? Taking a knee to pray. Taking a knee after 250 of them were arrested for trying to register Black people to vote. Taking a knee to show their humanity in the face of oppression.

Maybe he’s going to get there, let’s not give up hope yet!

‘…Rather than one of liberation and emancipation.’

Oh thank you! That’s cleared it up. Don’t knee, you’ll look inferior. I mean, you know, honestly, all your lives matter, but let me tell how you should be doing this. You’ve got your subjugation and your emancipation the wrong way! I’m Dom, I know this, I went to the home of liberation, Jesus College, Cambridge. Let me tell you what a boy down on his knees there meant!

‘So would you do it?

‘I take the knee for two people, the Queen and the missus when I asked her to marry me.’

Oh lovely, did you see how the posh boy managed to through in that ‘missus’ there? That’s the common touch, that is. Man of people is that Mr Raab. And such a sweety. Down on one knee, proposing to her indoors. Lovely.

‘By the way, she disputes that.’

Ah, so an event only you and the missus were at, and one of you thinks it’s a lie. Mmmh. So just possibly this lovely homespun tale of subjugation to the female world is total bollocks.

So that’s it. It took forty-eight seconds to go from, ‘honest I care about Black people’, to ‘let’s talk about my trouble and strife.’ Forty-eight seconds to go from a slight touch of humanity to ‘here’s a funny story I’ve made up.’ Forty-eight seconds to demonstrate that your total commitment to Black Lives Matter is the time it takes your mind to drift off to fantasy television and sitcom arguments.

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