"Lift Every Voice and Sing"

Nirvana

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/opinion/kaepernick-negro-national-anthem.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

Brent Staples in The New York Times today writes:

Abolitionists during [Francis Scott] Key’s lifetime viewed “The Star-Spangled Banner” as
they viewed the nation as a whole — through the lens of the injustice perpetuated by
slavery. They argued that Key should have described America as the “land of the free
and home of the oppressed.”

The professional football player Colin Kaepernick appealed to that same sense of
injustice last year when he knelt during “The Star-Spangled Banner” to protest
police violence against African-Americans. By doing so, he tapped into a feeling
of alienation from the anthem in the black community that dates back to the
days of racial terrorism and lynching in the South.

Read the whole article and see the alternative anthem sung. Francis Scott Key's only became the "official version" in 1931.
But, of course, the Impostor in the White House is using his own theatrics to get people all riled up. I call his histrionics "Fake Views."

Jeroen

I think Trump is a practitioner of “fake mind”...

Nirvana

The links in this article are fascinating — esp the one to Smithsonian.com.

federica

This is an 'American' thing, right....? I'll just keep an eye on things as a Mod, but frankly, can't really comment further.
Don't any o' y'all get into a scrap, now.....