NATIONAL ANTHEM

After dinner at my niece and her husband’s house with the family we had an interesting conversation that apparently began a few days prior between her, her mother and brother. From what I gathered it began with a discussion on Kaepernick’s refusing to stand during the National Anthem. The question was something along the lines of why should he be forced to stand? Now mind you, I’m not certain that’s how the conversation began and defense of his actions wasn’t there, but the question about the National Anthem was involved.

Through the various items involved this led to a larger discussion among all of us that afternoon. It was thought provoking and interesting. It was exactly what an after dinner conversation should be. It never resulted in fists being thrown or threats being issued. It got heated at times based on passion for the topic but never in an insulting or disrespectful way. More often it was in one of us trying to make a point while at the same time being questioned about the one we just finished. LOL. But that’s what lively debate and discussion is all about. The end result is a better understanding of the topic at hand.

All of this led to my thinking about what we discussed and most importantly the difference in generations that I saw that afternoon. My father, in his 70s; my sister and I in our 50s; and my niece in her late 20s/early 30s (that’s called covering your butt by the way). Roughly 20 year gaps between each of us. The amount of history involved in those gaps is more than you would think. And when you add to that the larger gap of what has been seen by my father as a child to what my niece has seen as a child, consider the amount of history from when he was a child to her today.

All of that has to be taken into account when it comes to the focal point that began the discussion, the National Anthem. And that topic itself is inclined to involve not just the song itself but what it and this country represent. That’s what the course of the conversation included.

Let’s begin with the first thing most of us agreed on. Kaepernick had every right as an American citizen to refuse to stand for the National Anthem. That’s part of what being an American is, the freedoms that we have. It becomes a sort of catch-22 though in that we have someone disrespecting a country that gave him the right to be disrespectful. Just because you have the right doesn’t mean the best path to take is to do so.

In addition to that as we discussed for the most part we agreed. His refusal to stand accomplished nothing for the cause he claimed to support, violence against blacks by police officers. In fact his act took attention away from the topic and forced it onto his actions instead. He made the story about him rather than about the topic he was angry about. In addition to that it made it apparent that he was buying into the whole false narrative that there is a plague in this nation of young black men being killed by police. The actual numbers show a completely different story, but you rarely hear them because they don’t fit the narrative of a press eager to cause more problems and thus create more stories.

We discussed the fact that by making a scene on national television it had side effects that were negative rather than positive. As a man making millions of dollars to play a game, he has the chance to help in so many other ways. Rather than live a lavish lifestyle he could take a large portion of what he is paid and invest in the communities that are hardest hit. He could fund schools, could work in a food bank in his spare time, help with community centers or even make a point of visiting all of these same locations in the hopes of inspiring young people to make their communities a better place. By being on national television he could lead by example the thousands of kids watching. Instead he taught them to be disrespectful and accomplished nothing.

Has anything changed as a result of his protest? I mean other than to inspire other athletes and protesters to do the same thing? And for each of them that protests by refusing to stand or to take a knee, has it accomplished anything? Not at all. And most importantly while he acts so outraged at the false claim that police are killing black men across the country he continues to ignore the largest cause of homicides among blacks going on now, black on black crime.

Take Chicago for example. As of today (10/17/16) the number of blacks killed in Chicago has surpassed the previous year.  3,475 people this year compared to 2,441 shot by this time last year, an increase of 1,034 people. Included in that figure are 595 homicides as opposed to 409 last year, an increase of 186 dead. But where is the outrage over this? Where is the cry to stop black on black crime? It’s a less easy target so it doesn’t get the attention. It also doesn’t fit the political narrative that actually ties into the reason for the whole BLM movement.

All of this is a part of the story. But it still doesn’t tell it all. It doesn’t talk about the song, the National Anthem, and the views of young people today. They don’t understand the importance of the song or of national pride or of patriotism. They don’t have the love of country that many older people do.

In part I think that the reason for this is the way education has handled this country in the last few decades. More and more scandals involving politicians are coming to light. Where they were swept under the carpet during the years of JFK and LBJ they suddenly became the main topic when Nixon and Watergate came to light. Afterwards journalists stopped being reporters and wanted to become stars like Woodward and Bernstein. Journalism changed from reporting the story to being a part of the story.

There was also a change in what was being taught when it came to history as well. While we had history classes that focused on the founding fathers through World War II the new history classes seemed intent on discussing things that were more recent while ignoring how we got there. I recall a grade school class where my son was being taught about the Civil Rights movement and amendment while never having learned about the Constitution or Bill of Rights to begin with. How can you understand an amendment to a document you have no concept of? I remember a grade school teacher requiring him and his fellow students to write a letter to the Canadian government protesting their treatment of Native Americans there. Grade schoolers asked to write letters about something they have no clue about?

Schools also stopped teaching about the good things in this country and where they came from, how they came to be. While capitalism is slammed and discussions of land barons took center stage there was little talk about how the railways transformed this country, opening it up for populations to rise in the west. Edison is no longer a hero for the inventions he made, discovered or advanced and instead is destroyed as a patent abuser and the eliminator of his competitor Tesla. Even the discovery of this country by Columbus changed from the achievement he made, sailing across unknown waters and finding a route to this country is a story now about what a tyrant he was, how he enslaved noble Native Americans and how his coming here brought nothing but disease and destruction to those in the new world.

The history of this country as taught in schools has changed from a positive perspective to a negative one. No longer is it the story of a country that developed a new form of government unlike any that has come before, how that for the first time in history the people of a country had the ability to make decisions about how things were done, were given a vote to change things if they chose to do so the next election and how this system has lasted more than any other and inspired others to attempt the same. Instead the flaws are highlighted and those doing so report that with glee rather than encourage young people to get involved and find solutions. As a matter of fact some of those teaching the negatives do so with the hope that those young minds will aid and abet the fall of the system.

The National Anthem. With so many attacks being made on this country from within and directed at the young people is it any wonder that they don’t understand what patriotism is all about, what that song means? They don’t get that this country offered more to many than any other country in existence. It is why so may try to come here, to experience freedom for the first time, to have the opportunity to create a better life than they could ever hope for where they were.

My sister made note of the fact that they didn’t grow up during the Cold War when the only battles being waged for all to see were those at the Olympics where the best of the world faced off against one another. When the American hockey team beat the Russians it was amazing. It wasn’t a moment where folks rubbed it in, it was a celebration. And the teams that both did their best also paid respect to one another afterwards.

Today they don’t get the words of the National Anthem or any other patriotic theme. The words are just stupid and spoken in the dialogue of the time and mean nothing to them. They’re too engaged with their own small worlds and not the big picture, a country that allows them to live in their small worlds. They take for granted the highways this country has, the water that comes from the tap with ease and the electricity that powers their gaming systems and big screen TVs. They can’t comprehend places where a transistor radio is a luxury and roads are dirt when not changed to mud. Places where sewage runs down a ditch next to the road rather than through pipes. They take for granted all of the things that are here because for them they’ve always grown up with it. It is the norm, the standard they are used to.

And on that note consider the changes that have happened just in the last 50 years of our 240 year history. Blacks can vote, own property and sit where ever they choose. You can use a phone kept in your pocket rather than attached to a wall. On that same phone you can access more information than an entire library would have contained a few years prior. You can travel by plane where once only the wealthy could. You can drive from one city to another on paved roads in hours rather than days. You can eat an affordable meal in minutes rather than spend an entire day preparing one. And you can apply a form of protest that actually accomplishes something or you can instead make a symbolic gesture that accomplishes absolutely nothing.

I could end here but instead I want to attach one last thing, a sort of explanation of this whole thing. Red Skelton was a comedian and movie star from way back. During the sixties he had a weekly television show. He did a piece there about the Pledge of Allegiance that always stuck with me and has stuck with so many others. Not only did he do it on TV but it was recorded and sold as a single (like a download for you young people). The words he chose to use meant so much and explained the concept of patriotism best for me. So let me just leave it to Mr. Skelton and his words to explain:

I remember this one teacher. To me, he was the greatest teacher, a real sage of my time.
He had such wisdom. We were all reciting the Pledge of Allegiance one day, and he walked over.
Mr. Lasswell was his name.
He said, "I've been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance all semester, and it seems as though it is becoming monotonous to you.
If I may, may I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word?"

I: me, an individual, a committee of one.
PLEDGE: dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self-pity.
ALLEGIANCE: my love and my devotion.
TO THE FLAG: our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom.
Wherever she waves, there is respect because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybody's job.
OF THE
UNITED: that means that we have all come together.
STATES: individual communities that have united into 48 great states.
Forty-eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose, all divided with imaginary boundaries yet united to a common purpose, and that's love for country.
OF AMERICA
AND TO THE REPUBLIC: a state in which sovereign power is vested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people and it's from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.
FOR WHICH IT STANDS
ONE NATION: meaning, so blessed by God.
INDIVISIBLE: incapable of being divided.
WITH LIBERTY: which is freedom, the right of power to live one's own life without threats, fear, or some sort of retaliation.
AND JUSTICE: the principle or quality of dealing fairly with others.
FOR ALL: which means, boys and girls, it's as much your country as it is mine. 

Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the Pledge of Allegiance: UNDER GOD 

Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said, "That is a prayer," and that would be eliminated from schools, too?