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Kagiso Rabada has said that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) move “will always be relevant” to him, despite the fact that South Africa will not kneel in their next white ball series against England. Instead, the squad, which will play together for the first time since March, is considering wearing black armbands in solidarity with the fight against gender-based violence and to mourn the lives lost by Covid_19.
South Africa head coach Mark Boucher described BLM last week as “an ongoing thing for us, not something we have to keep proving.” Rabada said he will remain part of the conversation, even if it is not the focus of his actions.
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“Black Lives Matter is one hundred percent something that I will always stand for and I speak for myself,” Rabada said. “It was a team decision not to get on our knees and look at GBV and dedicate ourselves to another cause. However, Black Lives Matter will always be relevant and something I will always believe in and speak for myself there. But, Mark has said that the team will not be kneeling and will be.
Boucher said the South African team believed they had already shown their support for BLM when they knelt at the 3TC exhibition match in July, after weeks of tough debates about race in the country. All the players involved in that match are part of the squad that will play England and Boucher said that one of them, Lungi Ngidi, who led South Africa’s response to the BLM, was satisfied that the team had done enough.
According to Boucher, South Africa will now focus on living the values of anti-racism rather than demonstrating them with gestures on the pitch, even though they have not played together as a national team since the BLM movement resurfaced over the winter.
In South Africa, the rhetoric around BLM was particularly divisive, exposing the recently plugged cracks that have resulted from decades of legalized racial discrimination. After Ngidi voiced his wish that South African players would join the rest of the world in “making a stand” in support of BLM, four former players, all white, criticized him, sparking a flood of player exclusion stories. color. The CSA has created a nation-building and social justice committee to address historic injustices, but has recently made no other public statements on anti-racist action or transformation, including its plans for redress.
The conversation around BLM seems to have shifted from collective to individual action, which is why Rabada remains in favor. During the IPL, he spoke about the responsibility of high profile people, including athletes, to raise awareness on social issues and reiterated that belief.
“It is important, especially if you have a platform like the one you have as an athlete: spreading the right message is important. It doesn’t mean that nobody should do everything possible to do it, but if you want, it is important to spread the right message,” Rabada said. “There is a great responsibility in the things you say and in which you defend. We have seen the roles that athletes had to play in all the political movements that were taking place during the confinement. I expressed my opinion on Twitter, and on some podcasts that we did, but I’m not getting too into that. I’m not writing essays on it, I’m not writing a Ph.D. on it, but I threw away my two cents. “
When asked if he thought the debate should move from whether a team should kneel as a symbolic gesture, to whether they could better address racism in a practical way because repetition of kneeling diminishes its importance, Rabada said “it would have to.” Think about it”.
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