Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that athletes who kneel during the national anthem were just like people kneeling during “religious services.”
Emanuel: Here Is A Knee Out Of Respect For The Flag
Appearing on ABC’s The View, Rahm Emanuel was asked by co-host Whoopi Goldberg what his feeling were on athletes taking a knee for “Black Lives Matter” and other racial justice activism during the national anthem, a move that was popularized by Colin Kaepernick in 2016.
“Well, you know, when it first happened three years ago when Colin took a knee, I was, like, you know, you have to respect America, and I didn’t think that was appropriate,” Emanuel told Goldberg. “You know, at the religious services of the High Holy Days Jewish services, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we in the middle of services, do take a knee and bow to God in our humbleness and understand that we have work to do to live up to God’s image and doing God’s work.”
“As I started to expand my reading in the Islamic faith, the Catholic faith, in key moments, one takes a knee in awe of both respect to God, but also humbly knowing that seeing God’s work here on earth is not done,” Emanuel added.
“When you step back and look at it, John Lewis, at the steps of the bridge, took a knee and Dr. King. Here a knee is out of respect to the flag and what it represents about America, not out of disrespect, but that America has fallen short of its promise,” he continued.
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A Ridiculous Comparison!
“If you look at religions of many faiths, bowing is understanding humbly that our work is not done. So my view began to change thinking of it both as a Jew, as a key moment between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as we think about it as our work as we respect the flag, but that America has work to do to achieve the ideals that the flag represents,” the former Chicago Mayor concluded.
What an utterly ridiculous comparison. I don’t get how Rahm Emanuel can compare someone who kneels for God out of reverence and respect, to someone who takes a knee to virtue signal about how woke they are! It’s not some austere religious act, but an act of egoism and protest!