Roger Waters calls on Super Bowl halftime performers to take a knee

Roger Waters, the former bassist in Pink Floyd, is encouraging Maroon 5, Travis Scott, and Big Boi to take a knee in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick during their Super Bowl LIII halftime performance.

In a statement posted on his Facebook page, 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 of Waters and his bandmates taking a knee during a September 2017 concert in Hartford, Conn.

Waters also included a link to an online petition asking Maroon 5 to drop out of the halftime show, which has more than 112,000 signatures.

Maroon 5 reportedly had trouble securing guests for the halftime show because many artists didn't want to associate themselves with the NFL due to its response to Kaepernick's protests against police brutality.

Here's Waters' full statement:

This is my band taking a knee at the end of a gig in 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.

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