Black National Anthem

[*Nately120*]

(07-03-2020, 11:15 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I agree, but I stopped short of saying he was wrong or worse, as some did, part of the problem. Most likely why my first reply was 

I'm not on your arse about it.  I always take the sort of "ehh...your call" view on things like this.  People have flipped out over every rules change in the NFL to letting players kneel to not letting players kneel all the way back to actually letting black players play in the NFL.  Personally, I don't see this as making the NFL left wing any more than the NFL is a Christian organization because many players cross themselves or point up at the sky when they score and so on.

Personally, the NFL could run a tribute to Hitler before every game and I'd use that as a piss break before the game started.

[Millhouse]

(07-03-2020, 11:03 PM)Nately120 Wrote: If you take a knee during the black national anthem who are you disrespecting?

The celebration of the first Republican President's birthday?

[BmorePat87]

(07-03-2020, 10:28 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: What are you even talking about?  America is one Nation.  The addition of a second "anthem" is purely about division, so much about "indivisible, with liberty and justice.."  I'm all about equality, but special and preferential treatment and appeasement is above and beyond anything that "one Nation" ever stands for.

Case in point. "Black national anthem" is a colloquial term for the song, created during Jim Crow America to help unite a group that was being treated as second class citizens.

The fact that white people are flipping out and seeing this as an attempt to "divide" is the only thing that is actually dividing people.

[samhain]

People should do whatever they feel morally obligated to do. That said, I don't really get depriving yourself of something you enjoy over politics. The league definitely does not care. They're at a fork in the road where they have to choose who to piss off. They would be damaged immensely if they allowed themselves to be perceived as the league that's anti-brutality protest. They already know that they can survive pissing off the far right, as they did it in 17 and still make money hand over fist.

In the end, is it all that awful of a thing? It's a short song, and unless you're at the game, you probably won't see/hear it anyway. Seems like a small thing to make a person stop enjoying something.

[CarolinaBengalFanGuy]

Well agree or disagree I always end up watching halfway through the first quarter because I don't get home until after we've at lunch after church in the morning. So I don't see any of this stuff anyways.

[SunsetBengal]

(07-04-2020, 12:38 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Case in point. "Black national anthem" is a colloquial term for the song, created during Jim Crow America to help unite a group that was being treated as second class citizens.

The fact that white people are flipping out and seeing this as an attempt to "divide" is the only thing that is actually dividing people.

Quote:Lift ev'ry voice and sing
'Til earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on 'til victory is won


Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast

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

Back in the time of slavery in the US, there was a large portion of the Nation who saw that practice as wrong.  That portion abolished that practice, as they viewed humans as people and not property.  Some folks didn't agree with that idea, as treating their labor as humans cut into their production and profits.  This dispute became bitter and heated, it eventually led to a great war that resulted in the side standing for freedom prevailing.

In the years prior to that dispute and ensuing war, a great many slaves fled their owners and plantations.  Where did those people flee to?  They didn't run to Mexico.  They didn't travel West and claim their own territory to form their own Nation.  They didn't take boats back to Africa, where their own people sold them down river into slavery in the first place.  No, they fled to America, land of the free, home of the brave.  A place where we live as "One Nation, indivisible".

The notion of a "second" National Anthem, one specifically aimed at one people in a great melting pot, is sort of contradictory to the ideals that the Nation is actually principled upon.  Perhaps the general messaging in society shouldn't be "hey, some of you were mean to us", but rather "thanks for seeing us as equals, and making things right"?

[bengaloo]

Happy Independence Day!!

Gotta say, I try not to pay attention to politics, but people out there are making it impossible. The NFL included. I am 45 years old and I have never seen this nation more divided in my life.

I want my entertainment to be politic, hate and division free. Any show, sport, etc that are not in line with my thinking are taking a hike, because I have no time for hate peddling in my life. Ive been very excited about the Bengals this year, but clearly the upcoming football season is going to be a total shitshow and its going to take away from what football is all about. Ball-less Roger Goodell has been peddling drama since he took over, starting with the unequal punishment of players for things they do in their personal lives and the media hype monster that also turned into. I just cant support that guy, and the NFL is not going to do well on this.

As far as the racism thing goes. I'm in a mixed family of mostly lifelong democrats. Not anymore. There isnt a single person, black mixed or white in my family who believe any of this is helping, and none of them will ever vote for Democrats again because the hate, division and utter insanity is coming from that group primarily right before our eyes. I dont vote, but this is all I've been hearing. I have seen thousands of people switching their party affiliation over this. It seems like BLM is going to be a bunch of college age pale-skinned leftists embarrassing themselves by the time the smoke clears. They are pushing black folks away in hoards with this phony movement.

So sad

[GMDino]

I am a white, middle aged, Christian American male.

I love sports and especially the NFL.

And I will never understand why people get so made about something so small.

The NFL, during a time of renewed racial struggles and national discussions, have opt to play a song that has come to represent the struggles of slaves as they tried to live "free" in a country that was still making laws to legally enslave them.  For one week.

That's the story.

But I'd bet that 75% of the people complaining could not tell you why the National Anthem is played before sporting events without googling it.  It's "just the way it is always done" and a private organization can't change it for one week?

Don't like it?  Don't watch it.  Skip the first 5 minutes before the game even starts (if that part is even televised) and then enjoy the sport.

[*bfine32*]

I will say it is good to see the Left applauding a decision to play a song that mentions God so many times as a symbol of unity.

"One Nation Under God"

[fredtoast]

(07-03-2020, 11:03 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I enjoy NASCAR and they have said no more Confederate Flags and appear to have supported a fabricated story of a noose.

The story was not fabricated.  the noose was there.  It was in the garage of the only African American driver.

There is not way they could not support it when it really happened.

[fredtoast]

(07-04-2020, 10:27 AM)GMDino Wrote: Don't like it?  Don't watch it.  Skip the first 5 minutes before the game even starts (if that part is even televised) and then enjoy the sport.

Exactly.  There may be a lot of people who don't care for the decision, but they are not going to martyr themselves as a great sacrifice to the "the cause".

These are the same people who see no problem with having people dismissedfrom theeir jobs just because they refuse to take part in FORCED ACTS OF PATRIOTISM.  That is a move straight out of the China/Russia/North Korea playbook yet the people taking that position here think of themselves as 'champions of freedom".

Funny how they don't see any problem with the "appeasement" of the radicals demanding forced acts of Patriotism in the name of freedom, but when there is "appeasement" for the other side they cut off thier own nose in order to spite their face.

[BmorePat87]

(07-04-2020, 09:13 AM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Back in the time of slavery in the US, there was a large portion of the Nation who saw that practice as wrong.  That portion abolished that practice, as they viewed humans as people and not property.  Some folks didn't agree with that idea, as treating their labor as humans cut into their production and profits.  This dispute became bitter and heated, it eventually led to a great war that resulted in the side standing for freedom prevailing.

In the years prior to that dispute and ensuing war, a great many slaves fled their owners and plantations.  Where did those people flee to?  They didn't run to Mexico.  They didn't travel West and claim their own territory to form their own Nation.  They didn't take boats back to Africa, where their own people sold them down river into slavery in the first place.  No, they fled to America, land of the free, home of the brave.  A place where we live as "One Nation, indivisible".

The notion of a "second" National Anthem, one specifically aimed at one people in a great melting pot, is sort of contradictory to the ideals that the Nation is actually principled upon.  Perhaps the general messaging in society shouldn't be "hey, some of you were mean to us", but rather "thanks for seeing us as equals, and making things right"?

This is actually incorrect. Fugitive slaves absolutely went to Spanish territories and Canada (an estimated 30% of escaped slaves in the 19th century went to Canada) as slavery was outlawed there. We annexed Florida from the Spanish after a war partially because it was where many slaves ran to. Many also did go to Africa as well. Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, was one of those destinations. 

Congress passed versions of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1793 and 1850, requiring all citizens and government officials to aid in the arrest of any escaped slave, and then in 1857 the Supreme Court said that the US Constitution did not grant citizenship to any black person, free or enslaved. 

They didn't "flee to America" because they were in America. Many did head to free states, but the law did not protect them. Very, very few slaves escaped slavery in the South.

After the Civil War, the US government gave up on enforcing the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and abandoned Reconstruction, allowing for Jim Crow laws to control the lives of black people for the next 80 years. During this era of segregation, incarceration, bondage via sharecropping, and lynching, the NAACP commissioned a song to be a symbol of hope and resilience for the black community as they began a long legal battle to fight against the laws of the "land of the free" that made them 2nd class citizens without full rights. This was decades before the US adopted the Star Spangled Banner as the National Anthem. 

I am more than happy to go into more detail and chronicle a full 400 years of oppression against Black folks that spins a different light on this romanticized and half correct history you are attempting to use to justify your disapproval of a song. I don't think any of that will matter. You are determined to see a song as a symbol of division, despite it not being that. This is like when people said Obama divided the nation. He didn't, people did that in response to him being president. Likewise, this song does not divide people. People are just manufacturing outrage over it.

[NATI BENGALS]

(07-04-2020, 11:30 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: This is actually incorrect. Fugitive slaves absolutely went to Spanish territories and Canada (an estimated 30% of escaped slaves in the 19th century went to Canada) as slavery was outlawed there. We annexed Florida from the Spanish after a war partially because it was where many slaves ran to. Many also did go to Africa as well. Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, was one of those destinations. 

Congress passed versions of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1793 and 1850, requiring all citizens and government officials to aid in the arrest of any escaped slave, and then in 1857 the Supreme Court said that the US Constitution did not grant citizenship to any black person, free or enslaved. 

They didn't "flee to America" because they were in America. Many did head to free states, but the law did not protect them. Very, very few slaves escaped slavery in the South.

After the Civil War, the US government gave up on enforcing the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and abandoned Reconstruction, allowing for Jim Crow laws to control the lives of black people for the next 80 years. During this era of segregation, incarceration, bondage via sharecropping, and lynching, the NAACP commissioned a song to be a symbol of hope and resilience for the black community as they began a long legal battle to fight against the laws of the "land of the free" that made them 2nd class citizens without full rights. This was decades before the US adopted the Star Spangled Banner as the National Anthem. 

I am more than happy to go into more detail and chronicle a full 400 years of oppression against Black folks that spins a different light on this romanticized and half correct history you are attempting to use to justify your disapproval of a song. I don't think any of that will matter. You are determined to see a song as a symbol of division, despite it not being that. This is like when people said Obama divided the nation. He didn't, people did that in response to him being president. Likewise, this song does not divide people. People are just manufacturing outrage over it.

Shit... I wasn’t planning on learning anything new today.

[Dill]

(07-03-2020, 10:51 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Quitting the NFL because they are playing a black national anthem in week 1?  Meh, it's your call but I don't see what the big deal about it is.  Am I missing something here?

Boy Howdy you are.

LEFTISTS! They have taken over. The NFL is now an organization of millionaire owners and players, who have adopting a far left perspective.

They will be re-distributing their wealth any day now. Cuz that's what leftists are about.

Y'all won't be complaining when the checks start coming. 

[fredtoast]

Here is what it boils down to.

I understand why some peoples politcal beliefs cause them to be offended by a "Black National Anthem". I am not saying you can't be offended.

But I think it is crazy to eliminate something you enjoy so much just because of a 5 minute song that has ZERO effect on the game.

I enjoy music by criminals. I wear neckties with Rush Limbaughs name on the back of them (but all bought second hand so he does not receive any of the funds). I enjoy books written by both extreme conservatives and communists; evangelical Christians and atheists. I enjoy food from anti-LGBTQ "Chik-fil-a" as well as the local hippie "Mellow Mushroom Pizza".

I am not going to punish myself in order to make some sort of "political statement" that NO ONE ELSE will even hear or care about. I am not going to cut off my nose to spite my face.

[Dill]

(07-04-2020, 10:27 AM)GMDino Wrote: But I'd bet that 75% of the people complaining could not tell you why the National Anthem is played before sporting events without googling it.  It's "just the way it is always done" and a private organization can't change it for one week?

Don't like it?  Don't watch it.  Skip the first 5 minutes before the game even starts (if that part is even televised) and then enjoy the sport.

No Dino.  We don't give into "the Left" like that. Next thing you know, some team will be hiring Colin Kaepernick.

I'm sorry to say but the only rational response to the Black Anthem is to never watch another NFL game.  Ever.

Moderators need to consider shutting down the entire Message Board until the NFL eschews this extremism.

[Dill]

(07-04-2020, 09:46 AM)bengaloo Wrote: As far as the racism thing goes. I'm in a mixed family of mostly lifelong democrats. Not anymore. There isnt a single person, black mixed or white in my family who believe any of this is helping, and none of them will ever vote for Democrats again because the hate, division and utter insanity is coming from that group primarily right before our eyes. I dont vote, but this is all I've been hearing. I have seen thousands of people switching their party affiliation over this. It seems like BLM is going to be a bunch of college age pale-skinned leftists embarrassing themselves by the time the smoke clears. They are pushing black folks away in hoards with this phony movement.

So sad

Sad that protests demanding equal and just treatment for blacks are "pushing blacks away."

If thousands are leaving the Democratic party because of "the hate," this will register in the polls very soon.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-04-2020, 12:31 PM)Dill Wrote: No Dino.  We don't give into "the Left" like that. Next thing you know, some team will be hiring Colin Kaepernick.

I'm sorry to say but the only rational response to the Black Anthem is to never watch another NFL game.  Ever.

Moderators need to consider shutting down the entire Message Board until the NFL eschews this extremism.

This kind of ganging up condescension is exactly why the new rules are going to be implemented. While I don’t agree with OP’s point there are people actually debating this issue in a serious manner. Your condescending mocking of that position does absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation in a positive manner. All done while nudging your buddy and laughing at the “others”.

If you’re really serious about wanting civil discourse be the change you claim you want and cut this crap out. It’s exactly this type of gestalt belittling that pushed many people to stop posting here. Don’t bother with a ten paragraph reply about how you weren’t doing what you were doing. Don’t bother responding at all. Just cut this kind of junior high crap out.

[Benton]

Having pride and recognition in your heritage is part of what makes this country great. At the same time, I think that comes secondary to the national identity.

Slavery was wrong. Segregation was wrong. Trying to have a nation within a nation is wrong, too.

[*Nately120*]

I guess i don't find alternate political or religious views being expressed as some sort of affront to me. I don't need the NFL to be apolitical, personally. Other viewpoints exist and that's fine by me.