With the Super Bowl only days away, calls for halftime show performers Maroon 5, Travis Scott, and Big Boi to make a grand gesture toward fans the NFL has alienated with recent moves have only grown louder. The latest voice to join the chorus belongs to former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, who implored his musical colleagues to take a stand during their performance by taking a knee.
In a statement, Waters wrote: “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’ on stage 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.” The statement was accompanied by a video, which you can watch below:
The veteran rocker and his band did exactly that after a concert in September 2017, which Waters said they did “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.” He elaborated that, “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. 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.”
The NFL has been under scrutiny ever since Kaepernick accused the league of colluding to keep him from playing after his 2016 protests drew criticism from conservative pundits and Donald Trump, who cast his refusal to stand for the national anthem as “disrespectful” to the flag and the nation’s veterans. Kaepernick has since brought a lawsuit against the league and many musicians outright refused to play the Super Bowl in solidarity. Maroon 5 and Travis Scott both met with criticism for their decisions to perform and in response, have each donated a half million dollars to charity.
You can read the full text of Waters’ statement below.
This is my band taking a knee at the end of a gig in Hartford, Connecticut on Sunday 24th of September 2017. 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. 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 USA 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. 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” on stage 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. 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.
The Super Bowl will air Sunday, February 3 at 6:30pm EST.
