Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Asks Maroon 5 to ‘Take a Knee’ During Super Bowl Halftime Show
As Super Bowl Sunday approaches, Roger Waters has a request for the big game's halftime performers -- take a knee. The former Pink Floyd vocalist has never shied away from political statements and on his social media, he's put out a request for Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi to join the protest statement started by Colin Kaepernick and to "take a knee" at halftime.
In his post, Waters points to a Change.org petition aimed at Maroon 5. It should be noted that the petition is more about the band bowing out of the Super Bowl festivities altogether and following the lead of Rihanna and comedienne Amy Schumer who both reportedly turned down Super Bowl-related opportunities while standing in solidarity with Kaepernick, who currently remains out of the league and has a collusion lawsuit against the NFL. However, Waters' request appears more designed to ask that the performers at least work in the "take a knee" protest during the nationally-televised event.
Waters showcases video of his own band taking a knee in solidarity after a 2017 performance in Hartford and he asks that Maroon 5 do the same. "We did it in solidarity with San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s gesture of protest against the endemic racism and often deadly force meted out by police departments across this land. It was the third Sunday of Colin Kaepernick’s lock out by the NFL. The message was clear, 'Shut your mouth, boy!' Next Sunday will be the 36th Sunday he has been locked out of your national game," says Waters.
He continues, "This is not a victory for the NFL, it is a defeat, you have denied football fans everywhere the pleasure and the honor of watching one of the greatest quarterbacks who ever played the game, and you have shown your true colors. You can sit in your boardrooms and huff and puff on your cigars in your glass boxes, but your action is a poke in the eye for everything that is decent in America. Colin Kaepernick is an American hero. If the U.S.A. is to have a future, it is the Colin Kaepernicks of this world who will lead you there, in fact, it is Colin Kaepernick who is leading you now."
Waters then issues his plea. "My colleagues Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi are performing during the halftime show at the Super Bowl this coming Sunday, I call upon them to 'take a knee' onstage in full sight. I call upon them to do it in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, to do it for every child shot to death on these mean streets, to do it for every bereaved mother and father and brother and sister," says Waters. "My mother used to say to me, 'In any situation there is nearly always a right thing to do, just do it.' So, there you go my brothers, you are faced with a choice. I’m not saying it will be easy, all the Presidents men, all the huffers and puffers, will be royally pissed off, but, $#@%’em, I call upon you to do it because it’s the right thing to do and because somewhere inside you know it."
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