I was chatting at my local bridge club with a visiting couple from out of town and they mentioned that they do not watch sports because of the protests during the playing of the national anthem. As long time readers of this blog know, I think patriotism is a bad thing and so am not a fan of the symbols used to promote it such as national anthems or flags. But in the US, those two symbols are fetishized as being somehow sacred and any sign of disrespect is enough to bring down strong disapproval. Look at how football players kneeling during the national anthem created such a brouhaha.
So when the couple made these comments, I replied that I did not see why the anthem was played at pretty much every sporting event. Surely it would make more sense to use these symbols on very special occasions like Independence day or the presidential inauguration or some other major political event? Playing the anthem at even local school sporting events seems to me to invite its trivialization and takes away any sense of specialness that it is supposed to have. I think the couple sensed that I was not sympathetic to their point of view and changed the subject and let it go.
Because of the protests about police brutality that had players kneeling during the anthem at professional sporting events, the National Football League apparently now plays two anthems before games, the second one being the song ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’, known informally as the ‘Black national anthem’. So of course that has led to criticisms by the anthem fetishists. The NFL would have been better served by not playing any anthem at all but of course that would have created a huge uproar.
The flag is another source of fetishization. The proper treatment of the flag is even codified in great detail into federal law in US Code Title 4. Recently a person on the Nextdoor community website even took some of his neighbors to task because they were not following the rules exactly, such as requiring that a light shine on the flag if it is kept flying at night.
Despite the publicly professed reverence people hold for these things, they are not quite consistent in upholding them. People use the flag image on trivial things like paper napkins, that get soiled and thrown away, and on clothes and swimwear that get dirty. I am surprised that there has not been an outcry about Amazon selling toilet paper with the flag on it. That hardly seems like treating the flag with respect and I would have expected loud right-wing outrage and calls from the patriots to boycott the company.
They love the flag except they also love the confederate flag. Consistency is for wimps.
The military pays the NFL to sponsor the anthem ceremonies.
@2 Of course they do. Everyone knows the military runs the NFL. smh.
I could’ve used some sort of “Bill Maher being a jackass” warning on that link.
Maybe we could be spared some of this nonsense by simply calling it a “hymn,” which is accurate. It can also count as an “anthem” — unlike The Star-Spangled Banner, it’s even properly antiphonal as the term is supposed to imply. However, the idea of it being a “Black national” one seems off. It’s not a nation’s anthem, nor is it one for nationalists (like La Borinqueña for Puerto Rico, for example).
I wish there were a term for it, but it’s also one of those tunes in which the lyrics endorse the activity of singing the song, sort of like a chain letter telling you to pass it on to everyone you know.
@3 stonedranger: Pay attention.
https://www.sportscasting.com/amount-money-military-gives-nfl/
In Europe football (the global version) rather stimulates regional pride. FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid is a classic exactly because of Catalonian separatism vs. Castillian supremacy. The shirt worn by SC Heerenveen
https://www.sc-heerenveen.nl/media/xzqnfb1y/classic-voetbalshirt-1.jpg?width=640
is inspired by the Frisian flag. At home games the Frisian anthem is sung, because Frisians empathically do not live in Holland. That kind of patriottism is older than the USA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Gerlofs_Donia
@dean56
So to be clear, the NFL earned more than 15 billion dollars in the 2019 season. Your quoted link says the military paid 5.4 million that was divided between 14 teams. Thats an average of roughly 386,000 dollars per team. Thats a drop in the bucket. The article also says no one knows how the teams spend the money, but that ‘undoubtedly’ some is spent on pregame ceremonies. Sports teams have been donating tickets and time to veterans and active duty personnel at least since the 70’s I got to see my one and only major league baseball game in 1973 when I was in basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood. Got to watch the Cardinals play the Dodgers in St. Louis. Not seeing how this is a problem, but okay.
StonedRanger caught demonstrating his lack of knowledge goes into denial. What a non-surprise.
I see nothing special about flags or anthems in the first place. Those are just overly fetishized pieces of music and fabric. If other people want to wear crosses, play some music, or carry around pieces of fabric, they are welcome to do so. But what annoys me is that they demand me to participate in these actions and become offended when I do not willingly join them and do not display any reverence towards their sacred (read:fetishized) symbols and rituals.