In a cowardly effort to lick the jackboots of Black Lives Matter, the NFL is reportedly going to have every NFL game during Week 1 open with the song “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” long known as the “black national anthem,” followed by the American national anthem, the “Star-Spangled Banner.” According to the Associated Press, the NFL is also “considering putting names of victims of police brutality on helmet decals or jersey patches.” (Maybe the NFL wants to tackle another serious societal problem and allow players to put the names of victims of domestic abuse committed by professional athletes on their helmets or jerseys. #LogInTheirEye)

African American James Weldon Johnson wrote the lyrics to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” in 1899, and his brother John Rosamund Johnson composed the music. It was first performed by 500 black students at a segregated school on the occasion of Abraham Lincoln‘s birthday. In 1919, the NAACP adopted it as their official song. It is a moving and inspiring hymn to God, deeply meaningful to the black community. But is it an appropriate song for sporting events that bring together diverse peoples from all over the world for some diversionary entertainment?

Is a song that emerged from and reminds listeners of the most grievous historical sin of this great country a fitting song to start an event that is intended to entertain? And why now? Why when racial discrimination is at historic lows should we use sporting events for this purpose? When slavery and Jim Crow laws are long gone; when we have had a black president; when we have black congressmen and congresswomen; when we have blacks serving and performing at the highest levels of every institution and profession in the country; and when we have interracial children, families, churches, and friend groups, why begin a diversionary bit of entertainment with a song about the “blood of the slaughtered” blacks killed by whites?

Of what other historical sins or political causes should we use sporting events to remind attendees? How about a Chinese anthem reminding Americans of their treatment when they built the transcontinental railway? How about a song at the start of entertainment events reminding Americans about the internment of the Japanese during WWII? How about reminding Americans at sporting events of the anti-Semitism that has percolated throughout American history? How about a song reminding Americans about the ongoing slaughter of the unborn? How about a song about the grievous and systemic/institutional injustice done to children by divorce and/or their fathers’ abandonment?

Sin and injustice mar the story of every country and institution that has ever existed because sin is the state of man. But America has been a marvel in the annals of history as a place in which racial, ethnic, and religious diversity can flourish. That’s why emigrants from around the world continue to come.

Our national anthem should be one like the third verse of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” (a verse that leftists likely detest) that places God first in leading us to a better place—a place in which we judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It should express the foundational principle that we are all created by God and endowed by Him with unalienable rights and that out of many, we become one as American citizens. I’d say this does the job quite nicely:

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d 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 thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d 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. 

If the NFL pursues this controversial political act—an act which will result in yet more lost revenue—let’s pray the third verse of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” is sung to Lord:

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

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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One can’t help but contemplate the amazing momentum surrounding the national anthem protests in the National Football League. What started as a lone individual—former San Francisco 49ers back-up quarterback Colin Kaepernick—taking a knee during the anthem has become a flashpoint of conflict that has spread to the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball.

In the latest and most unified moment of the movement on Sunday, more than 200 players across the league knelt for the anthem. In London, members of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens stood for “God Save the Queen” but knelt for the U.S. national anthem. Ironically, the national anthem singer at the Lions-Falcons game took a knee and raised his fist.

Politicians, chief executives, and Hollywood directors have taken sides, with fans and players taking shots at each other through social media. Even pee wee leagues are getting into the act.

Kaepernick, unemployed since opting out of his contract with the 49ers last season, seems to have gotten what he purportedly wanted: a conversation about racism in America:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.’”

To refresh your memory, the “bodies in the street” were black men and the “people getting paid leave and getting away with murder” were, presumably, white law enforcement officers. If we read Kaepernick correctly, the problem here is that people of color are oppressed, white Americans are the oppressors, and deadly encounters with law enforcement are his primary evidence.

Kaepernick’s way of calling attention to the injustice of racism was to kneel during the singing of the national anthem as the entire stadium of fans removed hats, placed hands over hearts, stood facing the American flag, and sang along. His ostensible moral force for doing so was that he would be “selfish” if he didn’t. I infer by that he meant he had made it big and thus had a responsibility to use his platform to call attention to the issue of white cops shooting people of color.

There was immediate blowback from fans, which Kaepernick ignored as he continued kneeling. Other players began doing the same thing, and from there it has spiraled into the full-blown test of wills between players and fans it is today.

The argument seems to go something like this:

NFL players and those defending them argue that the players have a right to protest. That’s what makes this country great.

Fans argue that these multi-millionaire cry-baby players are disrespecting the flag that represents freedom and the men and women in uniform who have bled and died for their right to protest, and that players should protest on their own time because fans just want to enjoy the game.

The protesters’ argument is somewhat disingenuous because Kaepernick and the others who have followed suit aren’t complaining that they’ve been denied a right to protest. They are taking a stand—excuse me, a knee—against racism in this country. That is the claim we should be discussing.

The fans’ argument is only partially correct because, while members of the military have fought, bled, and died defending the flag and the protests are certainly disrespectful of their sacrifice, there’s something else going on.

No reasonable person disputes that some acts of racism occur in some parts of our country. No one disputes that some white people genuinely hate black people. Neither is there any dispute that some lethal police actions involving black men and white officers are possibly influenced by racial bias.

The problem is that Kaepernick and his imitators are imputing racism to the American flag itself, while the majority of white Americans (and many blacks) proudly identify with the stars and stripes. Thus, white Americans in general, and white NFL fans in particular, believe they are being called racist. In other words, it’s personal.

These are the same (white) fans who pay an average of $86 to attend a game to watch large men in armor play a game of catch while they eat $5 hotdogs and drink $5 sodas and $7 beers after paying $49 to park at the stadium. Seriously: the average cost for a family of four to attend an NFL game is $503. Or, if you live where I do, it’s $601.20 to watch the ever-rebuilding Chicago Bears.

And protesters want to know why fans are upset when a 29-year-old, who got wealthy off the very people who made his salary, fame, and product-endorsements possible, shames them as racists?

These players of color fail to appreciate that white fans love them, too. They buy their jerseys, pin their hopes on them, and love being associated with winners and guys at the top of their game. Heck, as a kid I was a huge fan of Mean Joe Green, Franco Harris and (cough) O.J. Simpson. If one of them called me a racist, I’d find someone else to admire.

Players have also failed to appreciate that most of us ordinary Americans are patriotic, and we will choose our country over an ingrate with an overblown sense of self-importance any day. Even more so when you consider that Kaepernick wore socks depicting police as pigs, took questions wearing a t-shirt displaying a photo of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (73,000 dead under his regime) and radical muslim Malcolm X, and that Kaepernick’s Muslim girlfriend, Nessa Diab, has posted some controversial comments of her own.

But perhaps the biggest oversight of all is this: nobody needs the NFL.

If tomorrow you woke up and the NFL had simply disappeared, your life would continue. “All you need,” my dad used to say, “is a little water, a little food, and some air to breathe.” Believe me, I can drop my support of athletes by simply changing the channel or turning off the TV. I like what the NFL sells, but I don’t need the eleven minutes of actual play I get to see out of a three-hour game (HT: Michael Walsh).

The only thing the NFL and its owners and players understand is what the Bible calls a root of all kinds of evil: the love of money. Money is the lifeblood of the NFL and television ratings are the plasma. NFL attendance is down this season, and TV viewership continues to plummet. The way to their heads is through their bank account, and fans have figured that out.

It didn’t have to be this way. It was immediately apparent that Kaepernick’s initial protest was offending a major portion of the NFL audience. The commissioner, Roger Goodell, could have stepped in and stopped the practice, but he’s chosen to double-down on the off-topic “right to protest.” This will not end well for him, the players, or the league because fans now know how at least 200 players feel about the country and, by extension, them.

Colin Kaepernick had (and still has) the right to protest. If current trends hold, however, he may be remembered not as the hero of racial reconciliation but as the man who single-handedly brought down the NFL. And in that scenario, the losses far outweigh any good he might have done.

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