Kneel: Religious, Political and Personal Meanings
Religion
I attended a Catholic elementary school and later a Catholic high school. During Mass in the church, there were times when we knelt in front of the pews, or knelt when we received communion. It was part of the ritual and it conveyed subservience, humility, prayer, worship and request. I always did as I was required to do and it was a normal aspect of my experience in the church.
At one point when I was between eleven and thirteen years old, I was an altar boy who served during early morning Mass (7 am or 8 am and sometimes even earlier), whether on specific weekdays or weekends, and for special holidays and events (I may have even assisted for one wedding or funeral). I alternated with other altar boys especially on Sundays when more than one Mass occurred. And at specified times in various ceremonies, we knelt down, usually on both knees but sometimes on one knee. I didn’t think anything of it.
We also knelt in the confessional when admitting our sins to a priest, asking forgiveness and receiving penance. However, in seventh and eighth grade, I began sensing a certain nonsensical irrelevance to the biweekly confessions, when the class was broken into boys and girls and taken to the church on different days. One by one we told the priest about our sins. I had always been a good kid and I almost never had any sins to confess. I couldn’t really think of anything I had done wrong so I blew up insignificant disagreements with my siblings into an argument that became a “sin” but in reality such sins were not serious.
Then one day I admitted something to the priest that I thought would qualify involving the actions that resulted from my reaching puberty. I told my priest that I had “touched” myself. Of course, I was not the only boy who did this. I soon learned that some of my fellow male classmates had confessed the same sin, for lack of anything else to report while we knelt behind the almost useless screen that separated us from the priest. He knew exactly which kid he was speaking with.
Thus began a series of mostly single sin confessions in the last year of elementary school. I was sinning in this manner in my room in my family’s apartment almost every day after school or in my bed in the middle of the night. To his credit, the priest never seemed to take such sins seriously. We were told to say a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers and that was basically it.
Nevertheless, the ridiculousness of confessing something that I knew I was going to do again and again, something which hurt no one, led to me falling away from the teachings of the church involving sin. Early in my high school years, I began skipping mass every Sunday. Although I stepped foot inside Catholic and Baptist churches in future years, usually for a relative’s wedding or a funeral, essentially I stopped going to church entirely.
Although kneeling for religious reasons was gone from my life, I remained aware of it in others in both Christian and non-Christian religions. It remained visible whenever I channel surfed and glimpsed Mass on TV at Christmas or Easter. It was sometimes right in front of me when I walked through the certain streets in New York City and saw Muslims kneeling in public on the sidewalk during noon-time prayers. Occasionally I would satisfy my curiosity about the architecture of a specific church and enter one to take a look around when there were no services. Each time I could see people kneeling quietly and praying alone.
No one ever seems to object when kneeling occurs in a religious context inside or outside of a church. Everyone seems to find it perfectly acceptable, customary and honorable. The courts have dealt with objections when religion appeared to be coerced by someone in a position of authority in what are otherwise non-religious environments. These situations and sometimes lawsuits are argued against the concept of the separation of church and state. I personally do not want anyone in a secular school, on my job involving any secular employer, or any government agency/representative requiring me to kneel and say prayers (almost always Christian) that I have not recited in years.
Political
No one has the right to order me to kneel, although police do believe that they can order someone to stand, sit or kneel or lay down (with their hands up or not) anytime they want to. It suggests that their power over me extends all the way to denying my freedom to use my body in a way that is normal and instead my position must be approved solely by them even if I am clearly not a danger to them, or hiding a weapon. I wouldn’t want to kneel even for law enforcement because it implies they have a superior status and I have an inherently inferior status. For me, it’s too close to slavery if I have not committed any crime and I am no threat.
Kneeling is a movement involving one’s own body, and it should be controlled only by the person kneeling. No one should force another person to kneel against their will by issuing such a command to their legs, under the promise of punishment if they don't comply. Whether it is done alone or in the presence of many others who may or may not be doing the same thing, the only person who is physically affected by your own kneeling is yourself. The reason for kneeling should be anything you decide, only. It is no different than any other bodily action such as walking, looking to one’s left or right, exercising or touching your own toes. It seems to me that we are supposed to have complete freedom to make simple body movements that are confined to ourselves. The exception is when we join the military, where we agree in writing to give up such control over our bodies and instead obey the instructions of our drill sergeant on up through the hierarchy of the armed forces.
A few years ago, however, some people, astonishingly to me, decided that we can’t have that right, particularly men of color. A few years ago, kneeling as a form of protest by black males in sports suddenly became an almost nationwide issue producing anger on all sides, for different reasons. Black athletes such as football player Colin Kaepernick were on one side and certain white people were on the other. The reason for Kaepernick’s kneeling during the playing of the national anthem at the beginning of football games was to protest the very real and incredible, continuing deaths of black people at the hands of (usually) white police officers without justification, and the subsequent near total lack of punishment of those officers.
Protest, as a form of speech and self-expression, is guaranteed in the Constitution, as long it doesn’t adversely affect anyone else. What could possibly be more innocent and free of harm to anyone than kneeling, which can’t conceivably affect any other person? It is also completely legal. Yet conservative white males who didn’t want to hear about the countless, appalling deaths of black civilians by law enforcement (or who even cheered such violence) decided to make kneeling an unpatriotic and thus unforgivable gesture by labeling it an affront to the military (that was not even remotely involved as a target of the protest). In doing so, they also seemed to forget or ignore that much of the military is comprised of black and brown people, as are many of the football players.
The imaginary, cynical, strategic labeling of kneeling as the ultimate offense was clearly intended to silence black athletes, and black people in general. The aim was to control and completely eliminate protests by black people. It was another effort to totally control and suppress blacks as a whole by whites who believe that whites alone should have the power to decide what is acceptable and what is not for black males. In their view, black men must never forget that they are supposed to be deferential and obedient, and do only what is approved by whites who they may not even know.
It’s a continuation of a historical belief by some white people in subjugating black people and extinguishing any form of non-acceptance by black and brown people of whatever white people dictate to them. Blacks can protest (although preferably never) but not that way.
Left unsaid but obvious is that if you find a different way to protest, say holding your hands behind your back or on your head, that would be quickly attacked, too. The lesson is that black people’s freedom to protest even silently and harmlessly is forbidden.
For this reason, I hope kneeling continues and expands in the future as a form of protest. Such power over us must never be accepted. It must always be defied.
Personal
At least there are still some innocent reasons to kneel. We might kneed to talk to a child or hug them at their level of height. We might kneel down to clean floors and walls or give the dog a bath. We might kneel to pick up items both wanted and unwanted. We might kneel to work on fixing a sink or the lower exterior of a car. Kneeling is more effective and less stressful than bending our back in many situations. However, when we are old, kneeling can also stress the knees when we get up.
Although I have never done it, someone might kneel to give sexual pleasure to another person, since kneeling generally puts us directly in front of the genitals of a person who is standing. Let the imagination roam on that one. Of course doing so carries an aura of submission, which can be mutually desirable or forced on someone by a dominant partner.
For me, kneeling is one of many body positions that I have used creatively in photography, whether I am taking pictures of myself or of another person. It does not always convey a special meaning more than any other pose. However, after I finish processing the images, I can see a connection to a larger idea or concept. In such cases, the image can illustrate thoughts that I have about a specific topic. The photo of me kneeling, taken years ago, transcends the position alone and becomes more. It can express many things to me and perhaps to others. The religious, political and personal significance of kneeling can be normal or it can be profound.
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