“Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” a song also known as the Black national anthem, will be performed live or played prior to “The Star Spangled Banner” at each of the NFL’s Week 1 games in 2020, according to the Associated Press, which adds that the league is also considering memorializing victims of police brutality with helmet decals or jersey patches. These moves are seen as part of the league’s collaborative work with its players to raise awareness of systemic racism and police brutality.
Why is it only for Week 1? If this is the right thing to do, shouldn’t it be also for Week 2 and every subsequent week?
Who will be the first to be deplatformed by suggesting that the NFL start every game with a quote from the second greatest president (after FDR)?
…there is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in the military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.” –President John F. Kennedy’s News Conference of March 21, 1962
How could we update the lyrics of “The Star Spangled-Banner” for coronapanic?
| O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? | O say can you see, by the screen’s early light, What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming, Whose HD and 4K through the capacious pipe, O’er the FiOS we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the phone screen’s red glare, Facebook alerts in the air, Gave proof through the night that Don Trump was still there; O say do essential marijuana stores, O’er all of Maskachusetts stay open today? |
| On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream: ‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. | *** could use some help here *** |
| And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion, A home and a country, should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution. 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. | *** could use some help here *** |
| O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation. Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave | O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Inside their loved homes until the end of time. Blest with op’oids and booze, may the Heav’n rescued land Praise Instacart that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then cower we must, until our minivan does rust, And this be our motto: ‘In Fauci’s our trust.’ And our school teacher’s union by Zoom shall wave, O’er part of Monday morning and also on Thursday |
Related:
- Francis Scott Key: [he] purchased his first slave in 1800 or 1801 and owned six slaves in 1820. … Key is known to have publicly criticized slavery’s cruelties. (i.e., he is like our neighbors who drive pavement-melting SUVs from their 6,000 square-foot fully climate-controlled houses while publicly criticizing climate change!)
I agree, I think they should take all the American flags down, replace them with the Black Lives Matter fist, and never play the Star Spangled Banner again. You can’t jump a canyon in two leaps. All the wealthy season ticket holders (I’m sure they’re mostly white) should forefeit their seats so they can be raffled off by BLM in a nationwide auction. All the statues and various honoraria at the NFL Hall of Fame and at every stadium in the county need to be subjected close scrutiny and removed or demolished if BLM objects to any of them.
How can we have the police still provide security at the games? That’s inherently racist. All the white attendees at the games should pay an extra fee equivalent to their full ticket price to pay a new force of all-black security personnel, trained by BLM.
And all of the businesses that benefit from the NFL need to be subject to an equity tax unless they are black-owned, which goes double for the companies that advertise on TV during the games.
Apparently, Steven Pinker is being cancelled finally for his racist views. 382 upstanding human beings from all over the world signed the letter to the Politburo:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ZqWl5grm_F5Kn_0OarY9Q2jlOnk200PvhM5e3isPvY/edit
I’ve been wondering for a while when his time comes. Looks like it’s today.
@Ivan: I’ve been wondering that, too. Now we know. I’ve also been wondering when I’d hear about Bernard Goetz again. That’s a very interesting story.
They’re coming for everyone, Ivan.
Also, I don’t understand why the lyrics to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” are necessarily less objectionable.
Lift ev’ry voice and sing [isn’t saying this like saying “All lives” or “Every life matters? Don’t people get fired for saying All Lives Matter?]
‘Til earth and heaven ring [there’s this heaven and hell thing]
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty [this sounds conspicuously like an echo of some of our founding documents, which are illegitimate]
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning 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 ’til victory is won
Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died [is this pro-life?]
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? [is this sexist, cisgender and heteronormative?]
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
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast [a white gleam as a hopeful beacon?]
God of our weary years
God of our silent tears [what’s all this God stuff in a secular country?]
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 [I thought Marxism was diametrically opposed to this]
True to our native land [playing American football in a land stolen from the Native Americans?]
I don’t know how this song is any better as a substitute for the Star Spangled Banner. It sounds like an awful lot of false consciousness and Judeo-Christian nonsense, utterly unsuitable to Marxist discourse.
In fact, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” could be seen as an expression of the themes in the Declaration of Independence and its statement of natural rights endowed by a Creator, not to mention the idea of overthrowing or abolishing any government that harms or abridges them:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We all know who wrote the original draft of the D of I, and he was a slave owner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
I don’t see how “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” helps anything, since the Declaration of Independence was itself a racist document written to enshrine the rights of wealthy, white, landowning slaveholders who had stolen all their land from the Native Americans through force, fraud and genocide, and built their new nation on the back of black slavery. I think we have to ditch the whole line of thought and start from the Year Zero.
“Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us” That’s racist!!
We need a video of Greenspun singing it. Just sing the verses that are always sung.
I have an idea. Why don’t we replace the Star Spangled Banner with John Lennon’s Imagine not just at football games but at every great national occasion? Weepy Imagine is perfectly in keeping with the zeitgeist of modern America — cower in your home tightly asked till Anthony Fauci gives you permission to go outside. Also, John and Yoko are great Americans who never owned slaves — unlike Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. John gave his life protecting an African American from a white racist and Yoko, now she is ailing but in her prime she accomplished so many great things. Shouldn’t they be so honored?
Panama Jackson doesn’t think it’s a good idea, either. As he puts it:
“Since the NFL recently discovered that most of its players are Black and that maybe racism is a thing, they’ve been doing shit. And there’s nothing worse than a formerly wrong motherfucker with a newfound desire to do right.”
I guess the NFL thinks that since they now “get it” their fanbase does as well. And they’re using a sacred Black paean to liberation to hedge that bet.
Nobody asked for this.”
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/the-nfl-will-play-lift-every-voice-and-sing-before-all-1844259737