A soccer star was on the ball recently with some comments about Black Lives Matter — the organization, not the concept.

As it turns out, the athlete isn’t for it.

You might almost say he believes the group’s committing cultural appropriation.

In an interview last week, Nottingham Forest player Lyle Taylor said he won’t be going to one knee before matches.

He also pointed out — correctly, according to BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors — that the organization is rooted in Marxism.

From a video of Patrisse, speaking on herself and co-founder Alicia Garza:

“The first thing, I think, is that we actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories.”

To hear Lyle tell it, BLM™ pushes “racial unrest.”

Speaking to LBC’s (Leading Britain’s Conversation) Nick Ferrari, he lamented being “branded racist” and called names such as “coon” and “Uncle Tom” for opposing BLM.

As noted by The Daily Wire, “He also intimated that he believes some white players could be feeling pressured to take a knee before games lest they be ‘branded racist,’ too.”

From the man’s own mouth:

“I took the decision because I felt that enough was enough. … [N]ot enough people have looked into the organization that has kind of brought this all to the fore.”

But again — he’s referring to BLM™, not a notion:

“I said before that I agree with the message that black lives do matter and something needs to be done about that to actually teach the message…”

The way he sees it, the organization is downright political:

“The racial inequality and the societal injustice needs to stop. But by the same token, we are hanging our hat on a Marxist group who are…looking to defund the police, they’re looking to use societal unrest and racial unrest to push their own political agenda, and that’s not what black people are. We’re not a token gesture or a thing to hang your movement on just because it’s what’s powerful and what’s going on at the moment.”

Lyle’s not been shy about his position.

In January, The Sun ran a story quoting him thusly:

“I’d request anyone who blindly supports Black Lives Matter to have a look to what that organization does and what it stands for — because it’s scandalous, the fact that the whole world and the whole world’s media got behind Black Lives Matter. Standing behind Black Lives Matter, all the big institutions, all of them sitting there saying Black Lives Matter, not a good idea.”

The group’s certainly found some deep-pocketed fans:

Every player, coach and ref takes a knee during the national anthem before the Pelicans-Jazz game pic.twitter.com/LZy1A6s8VM

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 30, 2020

At a time when skin color’s mired in controversy, Lyle has a predicament with regard to not only what he believes but what he is.

Don’t assume the player’s without his progressive flourishes. As for race — like many these days regarding gender — the guy’s non-binary:

“You have some people saying you can’t say ‘black.’ You can’t say ‘mixed race,’ because it’s now ‘dual heritage.’ No, no, I’m mixed race. My [mom] is white and my dad is black.”

I guess in the soccer game of identity politics, he plays halfback.

#HalfBackLivesMatter

-ALEX

See more pieces from me:

Maiden Voyage: The Boy Scouts Welcome 1,000 Female Eagle Scouts

Wow – Missouri County Passes an Act Empowering Sheriffs to Arrest Feds Who Try to Confiscate Guns

Punch a Nazi: A Holocaust Guard is Caught in Tennessee, Now He’ll Answer to German Authorities

Find all my RedState work here.

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