The NFL has sparked some criticism from Americans after announcing the league will play the Black National Anthem and the Star-Spangled Banner (the real National Anthem) at Super Bowl 58 where the Kansas City Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers. Patriotic Americans across the nation have expressed a slight distaste for having a second National Anthem, suggesting it’s divisive because there should only be one National Anthem that includes everyone – the Star Spangled Banner.
On the contrary, some people on the left side of politics wanted to have the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” become the Black National Anthem, but they either didn’t realize how many (if not most) might see that as segregating themselves from others or even sparking a divide, much less the criticism and conversations encompassing it.
No matter how you look at it, this is in the sports news realm and has now trickled into the political news blogs. A local news outlet, WPDE wrote about some of the history or reasons behind it, but it’s not going to make any of the critics like it. The critics, who are mostly patriotic sports fans, don’t want anything to do with a second ‘National Anthem’ – and why should they? We’re supposed to be One Nation Under God, but people on the left side of politics keep driving us back into separation. The WPDE report said:
In 1919, the song was dubbed the “Negro national anthem” by the NAACP and went on to be commonly called the “Black national anthem,” NPR reported. Columbia professor Shana Redmond told the outlet the song aims to fill in gaps in the unifying message of the Star-Spangled Banner.
The National Anthem, ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’ was missing something — was missing a radical history of inclusion, was missing an investment in radical visions of the future of equality, of parity,” she said. “‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ became a counterpoint to those types of absences and elisions.”
OK, but it’s not 1919 anymore. It’s 2024 and we’re supposed to be driving each other closer to togetherness and unity, not finding more ways to argue. We should stick to one National Anthem for everyone, not add more. What are we going to do next, have Zelensky cash a check for a billion and sing the Ukrainian national anthem at next year’s Super Bowl? At some point America needs to say no. And that’s not throwing shade or insulting the ‘Lift Every Voice’ song, it’s just pointing out that we don’t need a National Anthem for every group of people. We only need one National Anthem and we’ve already got it.
