We have become a nation obsessed by often-hollow symbology, and as this week’s frothy contention over San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protest refusal to stand for the national anthem, that obsession by corporate media and the public comes at the expense of confronting real issues for the purposes of reform.
In fact, the decision to sit out the Star Spangled Banner has a pointed nuance even Kaepernick and his supporters might not realize — Francis Scott Key’s song, penned during the war of 1812, glorifies slavery and oppression. Its rarely-sung third verse, as noted by the Intercept, states:
“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.”
Kaepernick has been ignorantly and aggressively lambasted beyond reason by the media this week — largely in ways that prove racism still thrives in this country over 200 years after the writing of the slavery-cheering national anthem — as hollow patriotism and nationalism suddenly seemed to become legitimate ideologies to live by.
While it seemed the entire country stumbled over each other to see who could chastise Kaepernick most acridly — while also ignoring or deriding the subject of his protest, police brutality and systemic racism — a number of additional equally worthy topics of protest hit headlines this week.
Below are those stories.