ACROSS the world, sportsmen and women have been “taking the knee” in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. What troubles me is the prospect of this becoming a trivialised gesture, wrapped up in processes that change nothing. Stripped of specific, disruptive, demands it could slip into the trough of gesture politics. Broader “Change Now!” demands are needed to give it meaning.

“Stop killing black people” is one essential starting point for police forces, both across the US and worldwide. But what else? What about those being killed in the coronavirus outbreak in the Smithfield meat processing plant in South Dakota?

Smithfield is the US’s biggest cluster outbreak of coronavirus. It accounts for 55 per cent of South Dakota’s reported cases. Most of its 3,700 workers are non-white, non-English speaking citizens.