Just How Sacred is Our National Anthem?
The Colin Kaepernick controversy raises a host of emotional responses. There are those who call the quarterback disrespectful of the military, unpatriotic, or an opportunist with one last ditch effort at making his name relevant in the NFL. There are those who applaud his stance, his claim, and his foresight to use the platform of a professional football player to voice his protest.
There is also this deceptively simple yet insightful response from ESPN’s Stan Verrett. “You’re not always going to agree with the method. But let’s pay as much attention to the substance as we do to the symbol.”
There is another relevant question that has been addressed to a certain extent. This conversation has been drowned out by sports page clickbait.
“Just how sacred is our national anthem?”
Here I admit my bias. I once wrote a piece for NPR’s This I Believe entitled “’This Land is Your Land’ Should be Our National Anthem”.
Here others should admit their bias as well and it is an important claim whether it is steeped in patriotism or nostalgia. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is untouchable. It is our history. It is beyond our power to change. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is sacred.
My central thesis is this: The United States, the country of which I am a citizen and the country that I love, is not defined by what we are but by what we hope to become.
The national anthem is indeed a song about liberation from the British crown. It is also a song written well before a fraction of that same liberation would be granted to people of color counted as property. The “land of the free” was not applicable to countless men, women, and children who lived and died on these shores.
My central thesis is also inseparable from a second point. We can’t pick and choose. We can’t ignore historical context. We can’t grant a song, much less a nation, the ability to rest in the present without remaining painfully conscious of our past.
Paul Robeson, a far more controversial and bold figure than Kaepernick, was an activist, a civil rights leader, an actor, a victim, a prophet, in his time the world’s most famous singer, and even an All-American football star. He gained national attention in the role of Showboat’s Joe, a black stevedore who works on the banks of the Mississippi River. The song that defined his performance was “Old Man River”. Here is a selection of the lyrics:
There’s an ol’ man called the Mississppi
That’s the ol’ man that I want to be
What does he care if the world got troubles?
What does he care if the land ain’t free?
Ol’ man river, Dat ol’ man river
He mus’know sumpin’
But don’t say nuthin’
He jes’keeps rollin’
He keeps on rollin’ along
He don’ plant taters , He don’t plant cotton
An’ them’s that plant em
Is soon forgotten
But ol’man river
He just keeps rollin’along
You an’me, we sweat an’ strain
Body all achin’ an’ racket with pain
Tote that barge!
Lift that bale!
You get a little drunk
And you land in jail
I get weary
An’ sick of tryin’
I’m tired of livin’
An’ scared of dyin’
But ol’ man river
He just keeps rolling’ along
Soon Paul Robeson, now the human rights icon, would travel the globe to sing. His most requested song? “Old Man River”. But those lyrics, Robeson claimed, described the black man not as he ever was but as a caricature of reality. As a man who saw the river and desired its apathy. That could not be the song that he performed. Robeson had to sing not about who we are, but about who we needed to become. Here was his new version as performed around the world. His changes are in bold.
There’s an ol’ man called the Mississppi
That’s the ol’ man I don’t want to be.
What does he care if the world got troubles?
What does he care if the land ain’t free?
Ol’ man river, Dat ol’ man river
He mus’know sumpin’
But don’t say nuthin’
He jes’keeps rollin’
He keeps on rollin’ along
He don’ plant taters , He don’t plant cotton
An’ them’s that plant em
Is soon forgotten
But ol’man river
He just keeps rollin’along
You an’me, we sweat an’ strain
Body all achin’ an’ racket with pain
Tote that barge!
Lift that bale!
You show a little grit
And you land in jail
I’ll keep laughing
Instead of crying
I must keep fighting
Until I’m dying.
But ol’ man river
He just keeps rolling’ along.
“Old Man River” is not “The Star-Spangled Banner” in that it isn’t the anthem so ingrained in our national story and deep in our hearts. But Robeson still has a point. No songs are untouchable if they hold fast to a past of pain at the expense of the promise of a better future.
So- just how sacred is our national anthem?
