The Post-UMD poll finds Americans continue to divide along racial and partisan lines over athletes who kneel during the anthem. After Kaepernick’s contract ended with San Francisco, he never found work in the league again. When Kaepernick sat - and later took a knee - during the anthem, he was harshly and falsely criticized as being anti-military, including by President Donald Trump. Then-commissioner David Stern suspended him for a game, and Abdul-Rauf reached an agreement with the league to stand, lower his head and pray during the song. John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their black-gloved fists as the song played during the medal ceremony for the 200-meter dash during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and were kicked out of the Olympic Village.ĭenver Nuggets star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand for the anthem in 1996, saying the flag was a symbol of oppression and tyranny. That tracks: The call for equal treatment of Black Americans has long been met with pushback more aggressive than the silent protests themselves. And even when the song is more soundtrack than target, there’s blowback. Given all it represents, the ritual has provided the perfect platform for protest. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) A protest soundtrack You get goose bumps.”Ĭolin Kaepernick and Eric Reid kneel in protest during the national anthem. “When I hear the anthem, that reminds me of all the good things about America. “The anthem should be something that everybody can agree on,” he said in an interview after participating in The Post’s survey. Steven Plantone, 65, a White retired former federal law enforcement officer based in Philadelphia, agreed. “We need something that ties us together as a country.” “I feel the song should be played in regards to paying homage for fallen soldiers and airmen,” Stinchcomb said. The ritual has been criticized for manufacturing nationalism, but the practice continues. Over the past decade, the military has paid the league millions to stage patriotic ceremonies before games. In the late 1960s, then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle introduced flyovers and mandated that players stand with their helmets tucked under their left arms and right hands over their hearts. Whitney Houston belted out one of the most powerful and memorable renditions before Super Bowl XXV in 1991, at the onset of the Persian Gulf War. Marvin Gaye made it cool at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles, adding a little hip-moving rhythm to a song that usually requires listeners to stand at attention. A quarter-century after he integrated Major League Baseball in 1947, Jackie Robinson, who was drafted and served in the Army during World War II, wrote in his autobiography, “I Never Had It Made,” that he couldn’t stand and sing the anthem or salute the flag because “I know that I am a black man in a white world.”īut Black superstars have also helped fuel the ritual’s resonance. Some Black Americans have long found discomfort in the tradition. It officially was declared the national anthem in 1931 by World War II, it was played before every baseball game, plus movies and other events, growing into a cultural mainstay. Early in the 20th century, it was played at military events and, most famously, during the 1918 World Series. The song has been played at sporting events for nearly 150 years, dating from when it was used to commemorate a new stadium in New York during the Civil War. The lyrics were added to the tune of an English drinking song and quickly became popular. Francis Scott Key wrote “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” the poem that would become the national anthem, in 1814 after seeing the flag waving above a fort during a United States victory over the British in the War of 1812.
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