Colin Kaepernick caused a stir by sitting out the national anthem. Which invites a bigger question: Should sports leagues consider eliminating the practice altogether?
By all accounts, the United States of America has had better years than 2016. Our presidential candidates are hurling insults at each other over social media. One of them is running on a platform of fear mongering, thinly-veiled racism and xenophobia. There have been acts of terrorism in Florida and California. One of our Olympians set off an international incident by ripping an advertisement for sandwiches off the side of a gas station.
Most of that pales in comparison to the continued clash between unarmed or nonthreatening black men with police. A string of high-profile shootings in African-American neighborhoods have unleashed a torrent of anger. From Baton Rouge, to Minneapolis, to Milwaukee, to Harrisburg, it has become increasingly difficult to brush off the deaths and decades long oppression of America’s largest minority group. Young men are getting funerals while police officers are getting paid leave.
That’s hard to stomach regardless of how much melanin you have in your skin.
There’s no definitive account of when The Star Spangled Banner was first played at a sporting event. It was played sporadically in the mid-1800s, but gained traction during the 1918 World Series. The year 1918 was also not a stellar one for America. World War I was raging, and by the time Babe Ruth’s final World Series with the Boston Red Sox was kicking off, over 100,000 American soldiers had perished. Adding to the somber mood that blanketed the country ahead of Game 1 was a bombing that ripped through Chicago’s Federal Building, killing four.
It was against that backdrop that a military band took the field to play during the seventh inning stretch. Before the days of piped in music, flashing scoreboards, and LED ribbons, live music provided the only break in the action. On that fateful day, the band elected to play Francis Scott Key’s song. The crowd loved it, and, as they say, the rest is history.
From its humble beginnings at a World Series game attended by fewer than 20,000, the anthem has been an iconic start to sporting events in this country. Outside of international competitions, very few nations trumpet their national song for the entire stadium to hear before games. It’s an American tradition, through and through. We love anthems and flags so much in this country that we even play the Canadian anthem when a team from the Great North make a trip south.
The song, loosely based on the War of 1812, was never meant to extol all of the virtues of our beautiful country. That’s what America, The Beautiful is for. No, The Star-Spangled Banner was meant as a giant middle finger to the Redcoat bastards who had tried a second time to take back their colonies. It’s a fight song, bragging that nothing, not even rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air can take this nation down. If ever there was a song written to yell “SCOREBOARD,” it was this song.
The stars and stripes, and the national anthem mean many things to many people. When things are going well in America, they are the ultimate symbols of patriotism. When we need to come together as a nation, as we did after 9/11, Whitney Houston’s rendition of the anthem from Super Bowl XXV becomes a top-20 hit. Fighter jets blaze across the night sky, and paratroopers drop onto fields when this song plays. We are a strong country, and we are proud of that.
In times of internal strife, the tables turn and the flag and the anthem become a target. Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in solidarity with the Black Power movement during the 1968 Olympics. Rick Monday stopped a flag burning on Dodger Field in 1976 during the height of tensions surrounding the Vietnam War. The anthem becomes a symbol of our country’s over-the-top love of weapons, war, and blind patriotism.
Understanding the origins of the playing of the national anthem help to understand why it is still played to this day. The song was played in Chicago at a time when the country was struggling. We’ve been struggling as a nation off and on ever since, but our flag still flies.
Despite the ugliness that can surround the flag and its personal walkup song, the anthem and the stars and stripes have always stood as a symbol of American strength and a salute to the bravery and service of the American servicemen and women, of all skin colors. They risk their lives and fight in places like Iraq and Afghanistan so that we can sit in billion-dollar temples of athletics and watch sports. We need to accept a two-minute song being played before the start of a game whether or not everything is copacetic in the country. The song is symbol of America’s ability to rise above any challenge, no matter how big. That’s not what it always meant, but its meaning has evolved over the years. Thankfully, our country has evolved as well.
It is the willingness of these men and women, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, to go where most would not that allows Colin Kaepernick to have the freedom to turn his back on the national anthem in a show of protest. That’s not how it works in many countries around the world. An Ethiopian Olympian made a protest statement as he claimed the marathon silver medal. Feyisa Lilesa now fears for his life and cannot return home to his wife and children.
In some ways, Kaepernick’s stand against the national anthem is one of the most patriotic things he can do. As Americans, we should not be willing to sit silently while our fellow citizens suffer oppression. Whether you agree or not with the widespread belief that a system of oppression directed at African Americans exists to this day is immaterial to the argument. The fact that a not insignificant percentage of the men and women with whom I share a country feel downtrodden and ignored is enough to make me want to see change, meaningful and lasting.
Should the national anthem remain a part of every American sporting event? That’s the crux of the argument. Any number of reasons could be given against its continued presence at our sporting events. It is, after all, an act of semi-rote, semi-forced patriotism. There are questionable lyrics in the original Key poem regarding the killing of slaves who elected to flip sides and fight for the British. Native Americans forced off their lands may think happy thoughts every time a song blares to remind them of how powerful the US Army is.
The song that has become our national anthem is not the most perfect representation of America that will ever be written, but it doesn’t have to be. Our country, itself, is not perfect, but damned if we’re not trying to make it perfect. It’s a reminder to think about this country’s origins, the struggle to build a nation, and most importantly to remember that there are men and women, almost 700 million dating back to 1775, who have given their lives so that we can continue to live in freedom. Regardless of your political views on war and conflict, those lives mean something.
So, if the national anthem has become an empty two minutes for you, try and find a way to take something from it. Take your cap off and think about a relative who served in the military. If you disagree, still take your cap off, but think about ways that you can leave this country a better place than it was when you entered it.
There are plenty of things that need to be fixed in America, but the playing of our national anthem before the start of a baseball or football game is not one of them.