Another NFL season, another patriotism controversy.
Since August 2016 when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started kneeling purportedly to highlight police brutality, the start of each season brings a flurry of questions about the national anthem, the American flag, social justice PSA’s and social justice warrior messaging on jerseys and playing surfaces.
Apparently, some conservatives on Twitter just found out the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is commonly referred to as the Black national anthem. The original poem was written by James Weldon Johnson in 1900 and set to music by his brother. It was written in honor of President Abraham Lincoln. The song gained popularity when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) dubbed it the “Negro national anthem.” Decades later, it became the unofficial song of the Civil Rights movement. It’s part of Black history.
Some on the Right have lost their collective minds over the designation of the song as the “Black" national anthem. Again, the song isn’t new and it has deep meaning for Black people.
In another lifetime when I lived in Hawaii, I quickly realized that I knew little about Hawaiian traditions, culture or history. Growing up in the South, Hawaii was only a footnote in my American history textbook. My initial ignorance on the topic was remedied by reading “Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands” and other books. My point is our first reaction should be to let the unfamiliar spur us to learn about another culture instead of dismissing it because it is foreign to us.
This season, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" will once again be played before the national anthem before games. Bill Maher, host of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” likened playing two anthems to segregationist activities—Black-only graduation ceremonies or dormitories on college campuses—which have become popular over the years. I get the analogy but refuse to believe that playing a song that is essentially a Negro spiritual spells the end of the republic.
Black Americans are not a monolith. Those who think the country is irredeemable and founded on systemic racism want the national anthem to be treated like the Confederate statues (i.e. be removed from public life). They don’t feel the anthem represents them. I doubt the playing of “Lift Every Voice” mollifies them either.
Basically, white league officials are trying to placate their overwhelmingly Black employees which has resulted in the alienation of their mainly white fan base. They are satisfying no one.
On one hand, the depth of outrage and level of vitriol being directed at the playing of an uplifting song seems over the top. This is not a divisive chant. This is not WAP or some other patently offensive or inappropriate musical performance. A few cable news hosts waved the proverbial red sheet and conservatives predictably charged.
When the league started playing the Alicia Keys rendition of the hymn last year, I didn’t have a problem with it. I also don’t think it did much to address racial issues or demonstrate the NFL’s commitment to social justice.
As someone who has grown up with the song (like most Black people of my parent’s generation), the message resonates with me.
In the pantheon of things to be upset about, this is one of the least of my concerns. Let’s just hope whoever they get to sing it actually knows the words.
Lift Every Voice and Sing
(James Weldon Johnson)
“Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won
Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast
God of our weary years
God of our silent tears
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way
Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light
Keep us forever in the path, we pray
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee
Shadowed beneath Thy hand
May we forever stand
True to our God
True to our native land
Our native land”
The NFL is pandering. This virtue signal does nothing to atone for slavery, police brutality, the death of George Floyd or any other issue. These olive branches to the NFL Player’s Association are empty.
It is unfortunate these overtures meant to placate Black people have politicized and denigrated an iconic song that originally empowered Black people.