Boris Johnson’s Deputy Confuses Taking the Knee As ‘Game of Thrones’ Symbol

(Bloomberg) -- The U.K.’s top diplomat confused “taking the knee” as a symbol of subordination and subjugation taken from television fantasy blockbuster “Game of Thrones.”

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s public display of ignorance of the recent history of the Black Lives Matter movement drew fresh criticism of a government that’s been perceived as being insensitive to issues of race.

In an interview with Talk Radio on Thursday, Raab, a White minister who serves as deputy to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, declined to show understanding that U.S. athletes, followed by other people in different countries, began kneeling to protest police brutality and racism.

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

“I’ve got to say on this taking the knee thing -- which I don’t know, maybe it’s got a broader history -- but it seems to be taken from the Game Of Thrones,” he said. “It feels to me like a symbol of subjugation and subordination, rather than one of liberation and emancipation, but I understand people feel differently about it so it is a matter of personal choice.”

Opposition Labour Party spokesman David Lammy, who is Black, described the remarks as “deeply embarrassing” and a social media backlash against Raab prompted him to clarify his comments.

Johnson’s spokesman James Slack said he didn’t know if Johnson’s office had ordered Raab to clarify.

Ever since George Floyd, an American Black man, died in Minneapolis at the end of May after a White policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, millions of demonstrators have been kneeling in cities across the world. Earlier this month, the U.K.’s Metropolitan police said its officers were free to adopt the now-iconic pose, and several have since done so outside 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the prime minister.

The gesture became a symbolic act in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick, a famous quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, knelt at games during his football team’s pre-season game. That was during a heated U.S. presidential campaign and Donald Trump railed against it when he became president.

Raab spoke amid soul searching in a country that has a complex relationship with its imperial past, with a college at Oxford University yesterday recommending the removal of a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes after years of criticism.

As a newspaper columnist, Johnson himself has a long record of controversial comments about women, gay people and ethnic minorities. He has compared Muslim women to “letterboxes,” and labeled black Africans “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles.”

More recently, he has come under fire for commissioning another review into racial inequalities -- after earlier and similar probes were never acted on. He condemned anti-racism demonstrations for being “subverted by thuggery” after some protesters clashed with police. The whole thing amounted to a sense his government is tone deaf to a debate on race.

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