Colin Kaerpernick Is Righter Than You Know: The National Anthem Is a Celebration of Slavery

Excellent article and I am grateful to my husband for this one. We truly do need a new national anthem. And as Ron states, "Here's a thought. Just stop doing this at every damn sporting event, from kids 'T' ball to NFL football. What is the point? We are one of the only countries that ties sports to an empty display of 'patriotism'." ... Truly, there is so much awakening and so many layers of healing and so much deep transformation that is needed related to the indoctrination that we are immersed in as children and adults into the cultural stories that promote an unquestioning nationalism, a nationalism that has blinded us to the toxic cost of blind adherence to policies and wars and harmful belief systems and more which have cost untold misery, death, and destruction. Another world is possible. Blessed are those who struggle for a more kind, just, and caring nation and world. May our nation evolve to live up to the ideals we say we value. And may we all strive to awaken. — Molly

  

By Jon Schwarz

Before a preseason game on Friday, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When he explained why, he only spoke about the present: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. … There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Twitter then went predictably nuts, with at least one 49ers fan burning Kaepernick’s jersey.

Almost no one seems to be aware that even if the U.S. were a perfect country today, it would be bizarre to expect African-American players to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Why? Because it literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans.

Few people know this because we only ever sing the first verse. But read the end of the third verse and you’ll see why “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not just a musical atrocity, it’s an intellectual and moral one, too:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Please continue this article here: https://theintercept.com/2016/08/28/colin-kaepernick-is-righter-than-you-know-the-national-anthem-is-a-celebration-of-slavery/