We are told that protests during the national anthem aren’t really about the national anthem. But a lot of the protesting athletes and their defenders sure seem to hate the national anthem.
Case in point, WNBA star Brittney Griner said, “I honestly feel we should not play the national anthem during our season. I think we should take that much of a stand.” Griner said she won’t be on the court during the playing of the national anthem all season.
How about her teammate, Brianna Turner? “When the national anthem [was] deemed the national anthem, black people didn’t have rights at that point. It’s hard disrespecting a song that didn’t even represent all Americans when it was first made.”
Turner and Griner come to the same conclusion; stop playing the national anthem. It’s a position that’s been advocated throughout sports media, as well as by Mark Cuban and Bruce Arena. Nancy Armour in USA Today called the anthem a “poor excuse for patriotism.”
This has always been the problem with the method of protest Colin Kaepernick chose. Protesting the flag and the anthem becomes indistinguishable from hating America because the flag and the anthem are symbols of nothing more than America itself.
It’s not really a surprise that all these social justice devotees now view the anthem with resentment, a representation of the parts of America they’ve come to hate while offering no vision of the America they love.
Even more telling is that sports figures don’t view their sports with much importance either. The anthem, per Turner, is “not played at Walmart, it’s not played when you go to Six Flags. Why is it played before sporting events?” Don’t you see? Sports is nothing more than a trip to Walmart. I’m sure the city of Boston would have agreed with that back in 2013.
Our sports figures can’t decide if sports are a unique platform for unity or if they’re nothing more than grocery shopping or working an office job. They can’t decide if they want to preach unity and togetherness, or if people should stop expecting them to be unified around our shared American symbols.
Worst of all, they can’t seem to decide what the actual target of their protest is. Is it police brutality, or is it the racism of “The Star-Spangled Banner?” Are they protesting President Trump? No one seems to really know anymore, and our athletes have no interest in making it any clearer.
