The continuing refusal by the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to stand during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games has set off a debate about patriotism, protest and professional sports. But it has also raised another fraught question: Is our national anthem itself racist?
The journalist Jon Schwarz, writing in The Intercept, argued yes, denouncing the lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, as “a celebration of slavery.” How could black players, Mr. Schwarz asked, be expected to stand for a song whose rarely sung third stanza — which includes the lines “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave” — “literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans”?
Yeh I only found out about it this month. I kinda have to side eye all the African Americans who held their chest for this for centuries. Like where is your self respect?
I am not from the US but that sounds a lil problematic, Carly would make too much of a bop, America's racists don't deserve somethign as lyrically deep as Store
That line, in the context of when it was written, is not completely racist. It's about how slaves joined the British during the War of 1812.
That said, it is now horribly dated and racist. It would be great to officially remove it and the other stanzas we don't use, and just keep the first one. It's like how the Confederate flag was once seen as a symbol of states' rights and the south, but now we realize it's incredibly racist and people back then WERE much more racist than even in the 1960s.
But nobody sings the third stanza? God the division that is occurring in this country is just
That's what happens when a race's consciousness grows and they come to realize the society they live in hasn't and doesn't treat them fairly. Ya'll expected us to stay SLEEP for another 200 years huh?
