As Colin Kaepernick’s choice to remain seated for the US national anthem continues to highlight and provoke conversation about racism and oppression in the country, I asked attorney and Professor of African American studies at the University of Houston, Dr. Gerald Horne, for his reaction to some of the issues that have been brought to the fore.
The 35 year-old who wrote the US national anthem, Francis Scott Key, appears to have been a remorseless enslaver and abuser of black people, a tireless pro-slavery activist, a religious fundamentalist, and a proponent of genocide and land theft. The full lyrics of his song contain a ghoulish and sadistic call for the mass murder of enslaved black people who might attempt to free themselves from US clutches, as well as evidence of the US intent to continue genocide and land theft campaigns against the Native nations.
It seems that asking a black or Native person to respect or honor this song would be like asking a Jewish person to honor a song written by a Nazi. Even if the most blatantly offensive lyrics were removed, it is hard to imagine that anyone in the US, except maybe a neo-Nazi, would feel any anger towards a Jewish person who refused to honor a song written by, say, Joseph Goebbels.
That the dominant US culture chooses to use as its very national anthem a song written by a genocidal slave-driver, and becomes enraged when a black person chooses not to honor it, illustrates, Horne said, that the US was “founded on slavery and genocide”, but also, crucially, “in denial”. Many scholars have pointed out that national denial is almost never broken unless a nation is militarily defeated and forced to fully acknowledge and atone for its crimes, and even then it is not guaranteed. Full story...
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The 35 year-old who wrote the US national anthem, Francis Scott Key, appears to have been a remorseless enslaver and abuser of black people, a tireless pro-slavery activist, a religious fundamentalist, and a proponent of genocide and land theft. The full lyrics of his song contain a ghoulish and sadistic call for the mass murder of enslaved black people who might attempt to free themselves from US clutches, as well as evidence of the US intent to continue genocide and land theft campaigns against the Native nations.
It seems that asking a black or Native person to respect or honor this song would be like asking a Jewish person to honor a song written by a Nazi. Even if the most blatantly offensive lyrics were removed, it is hard to imagine that anyone in the US, except maybe a neo-Nazi, would feel any anger towards a Jewish person who refused to honor a song written by, say, Joseph Goebbels.
That the dominant US culture chooses to use as its very national anthem a song written by a genocidal slave-driver, and becomes enraged when a black person chooses not to honor it, illustrates, Horne said, that the US was “founded on slavery and genocide”, but also, crucially, “in denial”. Many scholars have pointed out that national denial is almost never broken unless a nation is militarily defeated and forced to fully acknowledge and atone for its crimes, and even then it is not guaranteed. Full story...
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