Several NBA teams have played what is known as the “negro national anthem” at games during Black History Month thanks in part to the urging of a retired Howard University professor. Eugene Williams, a 76-year-old retiree in Clinton, Maryland, has made it his goal to get professional and collegiate teams to play “Lift Every Voice and Sing” during February. He has been calling and writing teams for the past six months.The Washington Wizards became the fourth NBA team to play the song at a game, doing so during a timeout midway through the first quarter against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night.
Observations:
1 African Americans have a national anthem. It’s called “The Star Spangled Banner,” and is their national anthem because they are Americans.
2. The concept of a separate national anthem for blacks is divisive and offensive. When the song was written, in the midst of the Jim Crow era, that designation was meaningful and inspiring. Now it is destructive.
3. Or is the next step to have separate “national anthems” for all ethnic groups and races that are supposed to be part of a single, united nation and culture? Of course, we’ll also need a woman’s national anthem—“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”?—and a gay anthem—“I Am What I Am”? Someone had better write a trans anthem–“I Am What I Wasn’t”? The opening ceremonies before sporting events will take longer than the games themselves, but nobody will be left out, and that’s what matters, right?
4. Speaking of sports, all of Colin Kaepernick’s disciples swore that their “taking a knee” during—what is it, the white National Anthem?—“The Star Spangled Banner” weren’t protesting the anthem or intending disrespect. So we can assume that they would have also knelt during “the negro national anthem,” right? Sure they would.
5. I know, I know, it was “just” for Black History Month. The Ethics Alarms position is that segregated months are still a vestige of segregation, and an impediment to national unity and racial healing.
This episode proves it.
Ethics Alarms 
What’s your take on St. Patrick’s Day parades in Boston? Or Columbus Day parade in New York?
I’m not sure I get the problem here; it doesn’t sound like it’s replacing the National Anthem, if it’s just played “during a timeout midway through the first quarter,” not during the opening ceremonies, as you suggest.
In fact, the only connection I see here between the “negro national anthem” (which I note is in lower case and in quotes in the AP item you quote) and the Star Spangled Banner is that they are both referred to as a “national anthem,” with one of them in quotes.
There is already, in fact, a “women’s anthem,” or several; see here
https://www.redkaraoke.com/blog/2011/03/08/10-songs-to-sing-on-international-womens-day/
And if you Google “Native American National Anthem” I get the following:
These uses of the term “xxxx anthem” don’t strike me as discriminatory, or harmful. They are clearly just celebrations of ethnic diversity. Where’s the harm in that? Being part of a melting pot shouldn’t have to mean you boil everything down to a mush; we ought to be able to celebrate our various heritages, while still opening games et al with the Star Spangled Banner. I do not see a contradiction here.
My take: you’re stretching things to call this a problem, and in so doing perhaps creating more division than actually exists.
Boston is one of the most racist cities in the US, and the ethnic divisions that make St. Patrick’s Day a big deal is part of the reason. It St. Patrick’s Day vanished forever, it would make me happy. Never thought of Columbus Day as anything but an American holiday. It has been made divisive by historical revisionists.
And neither the Italians or the Irish claim a separate “national anthem.”
Living on the West Coast, where I would argue it’s the least racist, it was a shock to me to see how true that is. The NE wants you to believe the stereotype of the South as to where the racism is. I don’t doubt some amount of racism there, but that’s not what my experience in the modern, urban South was. I’ve been in Raleigh, Atlanta and Nashville, and there are large numbers of black professionals that are just part of the whole team without noticeable friction. Not so in the NE. You don’t see anywhere near the levels of integration, and people aren’t totally afraid to let some of the racism slip – certainly far more than out on the West coast.
That’s been my experience too. I’ve encountered much more overt racism in the North than I ever did in the South. Not to mention, the patently-offensive way the left treats blacks as if they are simple-minded infants in desperate need of their guidance and protection.
Jack, I know you’re not Irish, but I am by way of my maternal grandfather. The idea that St. Patrick’s day should just vanish is kind of offensive. The Irish came hear fleeing outright oppression and horrible famine foisted on us by conquerors who got particularly bad after the time of Cromwell, who I consider one of the thirty greatest villains of history. (tyrant, religious and racial bigot) When we got here we either got thrown right into battle (if we arrived during the Civil War), or we were faced with “No Irish Need Apply” signs and very limited opportunities. In fact Irish laborers were sometimes risked (pre-Civil War) instead of slaves because slaves were too big of an investment to risk. Eventually we started to fight the fires, keep the peace, and defend this nation’s interest both on the frontier and abroad, and we were accepted. We’ve earned the right to our own day of celebration as much as any other group. Of course it doesn’t have any official status, so there’s nothing to take away.
Now I’m not an Irish nationalist, mind you, and I loathe everything the IRA stands for (after 1922 and especially in the Cold War they were nothing more than gangsters), but I think we’ve paid or dues, same as all the other ethnic groups that make up this nation. However, if you find the celebrations that involve bagpipe music (which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea), crowds that are often disorderly, and green beer annoying, that’s understandable, and if you want to point out that at times we added to this nation’s problems as much as we helped solve them, then that’s legitimate, and I for one won’t get offended if you point out that a lot of Irish-Americans looked the other way on terrorism before 9/11, because that did happen. BTW, occasionally Irish-American groups will sing “The Soldier’s Song” as well as the Star-Spangled Banner at big events, together with other songs that are sort of unofficial Irish anthems like “The Minstrel Boy” or “The West’s Awake.” We don’t consider ourselves less American for doing so.
Columbus Day wasn’t a national holiday until the time of FDR, thanks to the energetic lobbying of Generoso Pope, newspaper publisher and towering figure in the community, although the idea had been knocking around since 1892 and the quadricentennial of the discovery of American. For decades it WAS a national holiday that few questioned, but now it’s getting questioned because there is political hay to be made by doing so. There are true believers, in fact one of my co-workers told me to just watch and one day every statue of Columbus would be melted down and his name would not be spoken except to spit on it, but a lot of those choosing to make an issue of it are nothing more than liberal politicians in liberal or mixed areas playing to their base. In the meantime, though, we Italian Americans (my father was Italian) will continue to raise our voices in the hymn of Mameli right alongside the anthem of the nation where we were born when we gather before we tuck into our macaroni and gravy , although we may first look to make sure no one is around who will give us grief first.
Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing wasn’t even intended as a separate anthem for blacks. It was actually composed as a poem for the celebration of Lincoln’s birthday in 1900, and recited to introduce Booker T. Washington, a builder of bridges, not a black nationalist. The NAACP only dubbed the song that in 1919, and it never has had official status as a separate anthem, nor do the lyrics really speak of separatism.
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.
Frankly, in this day of the Black Panthers and antifa, those lyrics sound downright tame. Frankly I think the idea of playing it during a sporting event is just virtue-signaling, and I agree with you that the idea of blacks self-segregating is actually counterproductive. However, the idea of denying ethnic groups their traditions, songs, whatever, is also probably counterproductive and likely to just produce more resentment.
One word: Tribalism. I saw too much of it from the Greek side of my family. Honor your ancestors by all means, and maintain sentimental interest in your roots, while carrying on cultural practices that enrich and flavor the melting pot. But all tribal rituals, days and celebrations empathize division. Cinco de Mayo? To hell with it. Not in this country. You’re an American, and you embrace that identity. if you do, i don’t care where you come from, and I don’t care to hear about it.
Actually the tradition of marching on St. Paddy’s Day was invented here, by an Irish regiment serving in NY before the Revolution. The Irish didn’t even start doing it back home until they heard about us. We Italians paraded the saints through the street in Italy, and we will keep doing it here, thanks (though this is less common as we have spread out). If you don’t care to join the celebration, then by all means don’t, no one is putting a gun to your head. I have to respectfully disagree that anyone can or should tell others not to celebrate their heritage.
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more tribalism now on the non-black side of the equation. I have no doubt that DeBlasio went squishy on Columbus because the Sons of Italy and the Columbian Citizens’ Foundation (the guys who actually put on the parade) rose up, organized, and said “you push this and try to erase us and it’s going to turn real ugly, real fast.” If the non-white, non-male, non-straight groups are going to demand special privileges and their piece of the pie, then the white, male straight types have every right to fight our corner too.
“Actually the tradition of marching on St. Paddy’s Day….”
Ha! That just reminded me of the term “Paddy-wagon”, and got me laughing! Remember the days when we weren’t so uptight, and didn’t take ourselves so seriously that we couldn’t laugh at stuff like that?
Yes Commissioner. Call Chief O’Hara and the paddy wagon, have them cart this human trash away.
“Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more tribalism now on the non-black side of the equation. ”
Alizia might be listening!
I mean, dammmnnnnnn but you just lit her up.
Luv ya, Alizia 🙂
Habla del diablo y sus cuernos aparecen …. 😉
Kind of you to think of me. My position is peculiar and contentious: I desire to be the sort of American that Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard were. That is, to think and see from within their categoies. To achieve that, I have found, I have to go back over and substantially defeat a current of ‘thought’ [sic] that developed during and after WWll. In order to defeat that I have to understand what *it* is and how it came to be. I keep stressing the same thing, more or less: social engineering, military intelligence in collusion with business and government, and a subservient intellectual class. Subservient intellectual class: a class within the culture that has given up on thinking independently and follows the lead of certain ‘tropes’ set in motion by the aforementioned groups.
What I propose therefor is a dismantling of a coerced social ethic of late origin, and a return to a former cultural ethic. To get to that requires work. What I mean is to be able to defend that intellectually requires an investment of time. It would appear that such time invested is for purposes of ‘retrogression’ and, to many, appears as mean-spirited. Charles Green once referred to ‘the better angels of our nature’ which got me thinking, you see, because I desire to etablish a platform for my thinking on a clear and definite Christian base, but Christian in the widest sense possible (Greco-Christian and Ur-European). The better angels of my nature are those that exist within intellectus and to grasp what that means, and to live in relation to it, means turning off a great deal of cultural noice and intrusion for which ‘turning off the teevee’ is an obvious, but also superficial, symbol. Gaining clarity is radically hard work.
What I also advocate for is a thoroughly radical, dedicated, articulated and completely fearless reclaiming of the right to think freely and to offer opinions on any topic no matter how contentious. To be able to think freely is itself a radical act in our present, and certainly within the highly patrolled and PC-controlled present. If you start from the premise that people cannot really say what they think, you must also examine that they cannot think what they see. If they cannot think what they see there is a discord between two levels of awareness: what they feel and know internally (reality let’s call it) and what goes on in their thinking: patrolled thought. I guarantee you that breaking out of controlled thinking is the most radical and dangerous act. That is why when it is done they quite literally come after you. Think out of tune with the Mass Narrative and you risk losing a great deal.
It would appear that I (and others who think similarly) are disregarding ethics. I do not think this is true. ‘Ethics’ is not some free-floating mist. One’s ethics, if they are genuine, must arise from one’s moral base, and one’s moral base is one’s existential platform that when known and rendered intelligible to oneself must be founded on logos. I cannot say I understand what is the moral and philosophical (i.e. logos-base) of many who write on this forum but, at least today, I see their position as ‘misty’ and lacking a substantial base in (what I consider to be) a hard logos-base. Mistiness leads inevitably to sentimentalism and emotionalism, the bane of our present, the infection that distorts truth and actually renders it meaningless.
The work that I have to do, that I am prodded to do, when I come into contact with ‘mistiness’, is exactly what I write about.
Good to hear from you, but I would not call you the devil!
I am not sure of all you write about, but I see where you get some of your ideas as a reaction to our American culture, and the forces that have shaped it the past 80 years.
I particularly enjoy watching lefties go spastic, showing their true intolerant fascist roots, when reacting to your ‘white identity’ assertions. They cannot engage in a logical rational rebuttal, and are reduced to yelling epithets and ad hominem attacks.
As a conservative, I believe in equal justice under the law, that words mean the same thing no matter who uses them, and that special rights for favored groups is destructive to a Constitutional Republic.
P.S., Cinco de Drinko isn’t that big of a deal in Mexico, it’s sort of on the level of Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day here: parades, reenactments, etc. It isn’t even the Mexican Independence Day, which is in September. For some reason it’s become all about Mexican Americans flashing their heritage and being all oh-so-special here, though.
Don’t forget many US schools banning the US flag on that day…
…which IS ridiculous. When the Irish-Americans and the Italian-Americans parade we DO display the American flag in its proper place.
I can’t help but agree with Jack that playing the national anthem of one specific ethnicity during a game is divisive and should not be done. However, I don’t see any problem with having specific holidays to celebrate specific cultural heritages.
Charles: …Being part of a melting pot shouldn’t have to mean you boil everything down to a mush”
You have, I submit, included a contradictory knot! What is melted is precisely what is boiled down into a mush. There is nothing that is melted that retains individual distinction.
In order to arrive at some clarity that notion of ‘melting pot’ would have to be examined. I wonder who used the metaphor first? I wonder if it could have been used as early as Tocqueville?
It seems to me that the idea of a ‘melting pot’ would have arisen with more force after the Civil War and during the process of establishing a ‘national identity’. I cannot see how the idea of a melting pot nation could have been a common thought or conception when the Republic was still a Republic and the individuality of state and religion was one’s primary identification.
There is an interesting video in the NYTs in series called The Interpreter’. I find this particularly interesting because I am studying, in one form or another and in different ways, hermeneutics.
But I mean ‘interesting’ in a darker sense: The NYTs has become overtly Maoist and is employing ‘didactic social moralism’ in a manner that seems incredibly bizarre! To examine these Maoist propaganda-pieces with a critical eye seems highly important. Here comrades Fisher, Keller, Ryan and O’Neill draw our attention to important ideas that must become part of soulful and sincere self-analysis for every Citizen!
There is a huge battle going on right now. It has many different levels but certainly one is psychological. So, one begins to see ‘psychological battles’ that are on-going but this in itself requires interpretation. One issue is ‘what is going on and what is seen (presented). The other aspect, in fact more important, is how to interpret? who interprets? to what end?
Not to be obtuse, but native Americans literally have their own nations, so having their own national anthem would be pretty much par the course. Do these NBA players have their own nation that I don’t know about? That’s a mostly honest question. They make a lot of money…
So can whites have an anthem besides the Nation Anthem? You know how far that would fly I’m sure! Can whites sing the African Americans anthem? If not, then it is divisive. What about the Irish and all the other nationalities in this country? I figure they would not appreciate others outside their nationality singing their anthems? We all can or should be proud of our heritage, I miss the good old days when no mater were you came from we all were proud to be an American.
I’m waiting for some to start demanding their own water fountains, bathrooms, and sections on the bus.
Perfect in every way!
From dictionary.com
anthem
noun
1. a song, as of praise, devotion, or patriotism: the national anthem of Spain; our college anthem.
2. a piece of sacred vocal music, usually with words taken from the Scriptures.
3. a hymn sung alternately by different sections of a choir or congregation.
verb (used with object)
4. to celebrate with or in an anthem
There is something… discordant about seeing a bunch of black multimillionaires with “equality” t-shirts on.
”There is something… discordant about seeing a bunch of black multimillionaires with ‘equality’ t-shirts on.”
Heh, THAT one hit the target, as in “ooooomph!”
Unfortunately, the odds are good that between supporting extended families and hangers on, predatory agents, receiving bad investment advice, over-spending and ignoring the IRS, they’ll probably be pretty equal before long.
”Unfortunately…they’ll probably be pretty equal before long.”
In spite of the eye-popping statistics which confirm that (”an estimated 60% of NBA players go bankrupt within five years after leaving their sport”), Inconvenient Truth requires prudent editing.
I know you’re more concerned with the feelings of others than you let on…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_finances_of_professional_American_athletes
I’m not sure bankruptcy is the measure of equality. Lots of these guys get fleeced without losing everything. Kind of like the rest of us at various points in our lives, usually our younger years. I guess my point is few of them turn into George Soros or a Warren Buffett given the head start they have, at least on paper. There are outliers, of course, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and many others, and good for them.
”I’m not sure bankruptcy is the measure of equality.”
Perhaps not, bankruptcy allows you to keep something, ~ 20 % of Americans have zero or negative net worth.
When that whole Michael Vick thing was unraveling ~ 10 years ago, I remember reading some absolutely mind-boggling monthly payouts to his bloodsucking ”support staff.”
Remember somebody getting a bunch of grief for referring to LeBron’s posse as his posse?
Eighty percent of Americans are solvent? That’s pretty amazing. Of course, there’s the “living from paycheck to paycheck” demographic. Plus, a client/friend who is a small business owner said like any other small business owner, he was always just a month or so away from bankruptcy.
That doesn’t have to be size dependent. Unless you get a government bailout like GM did, no company is too big to fail.
I’ve been in a huge pinch before when one of our suppliers failed. We were their #2 customer, when their #1 customer failed. The other company left them holding several million in unpaid accounts receivable and years waiting for it to resolve before they saw their share from the bankruptcy settlement. The cash flow crunch at our supplier put them in trouble with their suppliers who then wouldn’t ship material needed for our orders. We were current on our bills but still couldn’t get product. That led us to pull our business and with #2 customer gone too, down they went. 500 employees, several hundred million in sales, and down they went.
Yep. Business is risky.
Damn! That is horrible!
”Eighty percent of Americans are solvent?”
Seems to suggest solvency means you have over $0.00 (U.S.).
Perhaps we should revisit Disraeli’s three kinds of lies?
I looked into that because I’d read that if you have $1.00 in yer pocket, you’re better off than half the world, which wouldn’t surprise me.
The actual savings/accumulation/net worth rate for most Americans, not some but MOST, is nightmarish; that’s not even including the “underground/off-the-gridder” types.
When profligacy that has, like, you know, given no thought to tomorrow and avoided frugality like a syphilitic leper, comes around asking me for the bailout to which Matthew B refers, I’m not sure I’ll be very receptive.
Little Red Hen kinda thingey.
I recall during the Bernie Madoff fiasco, Rush Limbaugh was asked how much money he lost. His response was very interesting. For years he was a low paid employee of the St. Louis Rams. He watched the exact phenomenon you describe, where athletes earned massive amounts of money but ended up broke at the end of their careers. Limbaugh said that when he started making money, the example of those athletes stuck with him, and he has never trusted anyone with managing any of his money, so the answer was “not one cent.”
Wow.
and I thought the rich got richer.
Second try…
[reply to Other Bill, Paul and Glenn, after Other Bill’s March 2 at 9:50 am]
You guys’ discussion up to this point, along with Jack’s post, now just might have finally fully disincentivized me from ever watching or attending another NBA game. I thank you!
You three have reminded me succinctly of several of the most disgusting behaviors that are far too common among NBA players to ignore as anything other than “the league’s culture.” I did quit watching the NBA once, for a couple of years, in the early 2000s, after seeing players go into the stands to beat up fans. “Enough ‘gangsta crap,'” I said. But, over time, I caught enough glimpses of NBA action on the court to be seduced back to watching. It’s the game’s ballet-like qualities that draw me…
I’ve had enough of the NBA’s foolishness, and am out of patience with paying attention to the fools who indulge in it – that patience sustained to date just because many of the fools happen to be outstanding, ergo to me (since I played a lot of basketball, so I can appreciate “skillz”), irresistibly entertaining, athletes. I pray that this “national anthem” segregationism will not infect the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament. But, those are colleges and universities…and so, there is probably a very high likelihood that some arenas will promote the same segregationism, for the sake of “respecting players’ and coaches’ wishes.” “March Madness,” indeed.
For alternatives, I may yet become an obsessive spectator of, say, cricket and curling…or – God Help me, because it’s one thing my Dad did that I could never understand (although he was a fine player in his own right, but I can’t sink a 1-foot putt) – become a spectator of professional golf. I’ve tried to watch the pro golfers, but every time I watch, I can’t keep my jaw off the ground and exclaiming out loud, “That’s IMPOSSIBLE! NOBODY can do THAT! And NEVER, THAT consistently!” I can think of more constructive uses of my time than constantly reminding myself how poorly I golf. But, given the choice between CTE-ball, segregationist-ball, plus the absence of baseball, my choices are increasingly limited.
Thanks, Jack, for allowing me to ramble here.
To Hell with being a spectator. Do like I’m doing and build an airplane! You’d be hard-pressed to find a more rewarding pasttime.
That’s just what John Denver said!
John’s problem was that he bought someone else’s homebuilt (a Rutan Long EZ), and it had a serious design flaw in the fuel system, especially with the 3-way valve between the 2 tanks. He went to line up the valve with the auxiliary tank, the valve was stuck, and while he wrestled with it while turned around in his seat, he lost control of the plane. Now, if he had built it himself,….
The plane I’m building, the Cozy Mark IV, is a 4-seater
(to accommodate my wife and kids) derived from the Long-EZ.
You have a good point there, Joe. I would rather fly over a golf course than walk it – or watch others walk one. [chuckles] I am a bit too old and juuust a bit too infirm to be a pilot, though.
Still, I enjoy playing golf, despite how lousy I am at playing. I am not wealthy enough to afford more than a couple of rounds a year on cheap courses.
… I want my flying car!
What do you think a plane is? 🙂
”What do you think a plane is?”
Is it how you’s order a burger if you’s want to dress it yerself?
No, that’s THE plane.
”No, that’s THE plane.”
Then where does the rain fall mainly in Spain…?
Uhhhh… NOT my flying car?
I have been promised flying cars since I was 8. They are always ‘twenty years away’
What about my feelz?
I’ve been told that Braille fireworks for the blind are right around the corner for as long as I can remember.
When did “negro” become acceptable again? Is it okay to use for alliterative purposes? I thought it’s been verboten since the ’60s.
Context – African Americans have a free pass to call each other “nigger” without recourse. Just don’t dare do it if you’re not black.
On the other hand, it’s a great song. I’m partial to this version:
It is a great song. For everybody.
I guess since I’m only a quarter black I only have to sing 25% of the song for 25% of February. Since I’m a quarter Czech there should be an anthem for that too right?
I was at a gathering recently with a majority of blacks where the negro anthem was played & I swear maybe half the people even knew it.
If they did the exact same thing claiming that it’s a “White National Anthem” they’d immediately be smeared as racists. Don’t anyone dare challenge that indisputable truth.
When are people going to understand that these kinds of things are ALL divisive regardless of their intent.
Your self elevating pride will get you in a heap of trouble if your white or a man or God forbid a southern while man; however, if you’re a black, Native American, Mexican, woman, gay, transgender, identify as…, poor, on welfare, student, social justice warrior, BLM activists, etc, etc, etc you can flaunt your pride with confidence that society won’t smear you.
Of course, this is exactly what the political left has been promoting for over 20 years; divide the people into unique little subsets of society and encourage society to only promote those subsets that support the political left and demonize all the other subsets.
1) But since we are fearless people I propose we fearlessly sing a White Anthem. How to recover the capacity to have identity, to value it and self? And to do this openly and without fear? (Obviously this proposes seeing what is acting against that…)
2) When are people going to realize that forcing unalike people into ‘togetherness’ is the recipe for discord? ‘When are people going to understand that we are now living in the unraveling of an artificial social engineering project that is failing?’ The power of questions!
3) Another good reason to flaunt the flag of White Identity. Hail Europe! 😉
4) Sure, but the political left has done this under mixed pretexst. One pole can be described as Catholic personalism, the other Marxian agitation. How to separate?
One part of Black identity or American Indian identity is regained by ‘knowing who you are’. What your history is, where you came from. There is a Bob Marley song that goes like that (a number of them). To have ‘given identity’ to the identity-less is good and necessary.
If you know your history
Then you would know where you coming from
Then you wouldn’t have to ask me
Who the heck do I think I am
It is an inevitable result of gaining identity that one wishes to act as a sovereign actor. Thus what we are seeing now is a fruition of things put in motion in the past. Where this gets complex is in relation to a National Identity that is enforced. America is a giant market (the Walmart of America) and capital power wishes all the subjects just to perform their function as consumer-units. The Left, allied with business and government, and with a social-engineering intelligence establishment has attempted to create the capitalistic dream. But it is not to be (to all appearances!)
Actually my impression is that you are not looking at the problem and you simply cannot see it. The ‘problem’ has come about through a concerted and deliberate effort to change the demographics of the country. It is the ‘false vision’ of ‘unity’ that simpy does not work because it is, well, a lie.
“And so castles made of sand
fall into the sea
eventually…”
Instead of “I Am What I Am,” I vote for “I Gotta Be Me:”
Note the venue. And those in attendance. Hef…
…and was that Cosby, with the cigar, that Smokin’ Sammy scolded???
My impression is that now no one knows what ‘America’ is nor is there a solid definition of the term. The definition is in crisis. The nation itself is in fact lost. If there can be said to be a singular ‘it’ (a national self) the national self does not know what is it is, why it is, and very importantly where it is going. There is no clear sense of ‘national object’ or ‘national destiny’. The seeds of this were visible many years back. Richard Weaver noticed the aimlessness before during and after WW2. Now, it has come to fruition.
More important to recognize this than to pretend it is not happening.
America has come to a very significant but very peculiar impass: a crisis of self, a crisis of identity. If you want to you can (I mean this as the most general ‘you’) hide your head in the sand which means ‘try to recover an indentity that no longer exists and indeed cannot exist again’ and pretend that what is happening is not happening, or one can do quite the opposite: work with the flow of history in the reassertion of identity. Understand why it is coming up and why it is a) important and b) unavoidable. The doctrine that asserts differently is the fallacious doctrine. Visualize what will happen and where things are going. This is prognostication. Also a form of hermeneutics!
The ‘American Project’ in this sense (of blending-ground, of ‘propositional nation’, of multi-culturalism) is coming under severe strain. It will not be recovered through sentimentalism nor nostalgia. Nor anything artificial or contrived. If it does not arise genuinely and organically …. it will not function as ‘glue’.
One wants to hope that it will be a giant ‘public service announcement’, a giant national declaration, a TV Special, a new dance craze, a national unifying speech, that will ‘bring everyone together’, but that coming together, because it was previously done under false-pretenses, will not resurrect. The only choice is to move away from all pretense and self-deception. It is therefor a form of realism to say that it (disunity) is on-going and will continue to go forward.
I think that these statements, though they are speculative and interpretive, are truthful statement. And if truth is truly more useful or more helpful than idealistic mis-seeing (self-deception for example) it is better to become realistic.
The present is being played out on a background of ultra-intense power-politics with global ramifications. The understructures creak (in the video I posted above our Maoist overlords even included the ‘creaking’ sound at an important point for effect). Normally, to manage such impending calamaties, a crisis occurs.
They are now beginning to spin the story (a specific twisted interpretation) that Putin and Russia stand behind all this ‘division’. (I saw a video-essay in The Economist.) His ‘tentacles’ as they are described reach everywhere, including into our brains. As if the division arises from other causes than the direct result of artifical race and culture-blending projects themselves! The manufacture of enemies is a tried-and-true method. The 20th Century perfected the art!
How will the portrayal of crisis proceed? is the question. The national purpose, guided by intelligence and government in collusion with ‘media’, must be defined through national declarations and our modern equivalent of the Newsreel.
And it will become more open and obvious as ‘they’ attempt to counter what is going on in the present which is, in my view, ‘organic’. They will portray what is natural and inevitable as unnatural and resulting from outside manipulation.
I suppose this is one of the main arguments and ideological positions of the New Right (as a critical posture in relation to the Established Right). All of our philosophers speak to such new developments as ‘good’ and ‘necessary’.
I think the notion of a national anthem other than the Star Spangled Banner for any self-styled nation-level culture group in the United States is unquestionably divisive, and beyond that, would be, to a degree, seditious (if only in the ethical sense).
I mean, really though, this would be no different than teams from the Old South singing “The Bonnie Blue Flag” as their “national” anthem during sporting events.
Have you all forgotten that the term “national anthem” was in quotes in the original AP article?
NO ONE – other than the fear-mongers here – is suggesting it replace the Star-Spangled Banner.
I’m not sure the quotation marks soften the optics at all. And the optics are divisive.
The quotation marks are there for a reason; the “optics” are only such for those who willfully choose to ignore them. Responsible media like the AP deploy them for a reason.
Also, it was played “at a time-out midway through the first quarter,” according to AP. This is far from ANYONE suggesting a song be played in lieu of the Star Spangled Banner. Except for those who want to see something in the “optics” that isn’t there.
Maybe it really does boil down to errantly using the term “national anthem”. That would at least make the story one of incompetence in naming. If they are quite serious about the term, however, then yes, the attitudes behind labeling a “national anthem” are divisive. This seems plainly obvious.
Again, I still don’t see how the quotation marks make a difference.
I would also recommend you Google “The redneck national anthem.” Same idea.
A country song that is ultimately a self-parody?