Let’s just ditch the anthem altogether
When you report to work each day at the office or the construction site or the hospital or the law firm or the hair salon or even while working from home, is “The StarSpangled Banner” played? Do you stand at attention for a couple of minutes, hat over your heart, perhaps even sing along? Are you asked to show your allegiance to the country or the flag on a daily basis before doing your job? Don’t be silly, of course not. The best answer to the still-raging controversy engulfing the national anthem in the NFL is to simply stop playing it altogether at sporting events, although we all know the likelihood of that is about the same as teams no longer charging fans for entry. Which is to say, zero. Politicians never would allow that to happen, citing patriotism and tradition and respect for the flag and our military, buzzwords and phrases critics of the Colin Kaepernick-led movement have twisted and latched onto since he sparked the wave of kneeling for the anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality and social injustice.
Still, go to any sporting event at any stadium or arena in America, and you will see folks on line at concession stands or the rest rooms or milling about while the anthem is taking place, with several in the stands looking at their phones or talking to each other even while standing for the song. The point is many folks are hardly paying attention to the anthem anyway, but where is the public outrage over such disinterest?
“I hope the NFL decides to completely stop all concession stand sales during the anthem as well. We wouldn’t want people buying a $10 beer and an $8 hot dog during our sacred anthem,” former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels tweeted Wednesday.
Look, the new rules the NFL revealed this week — that teams will be fined if their players protest and don’t “show respect” for the anthem — are ridiculously shortsighted and dimwitted.
Thus, there was zero surprise that President Trump played to his base yet again on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning, railing that any player choosing not to stand for the national anthem “maybe … shouldn’t be in the country.”
The idea of singing the national anthem at public sporting events traces back 100 years, as many historians point to the John Philip Sousa-led Naval band playing the song during the seventh-inning stretch of Game 6 of the 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs as a watershed moment.
Francis Scott Key’s song wasn’t officially designated as the national anthem until President Herbert Hoover and Congress declared it as such in 1931. According to a 2017 Chicago Tribune story, it generally was played only on holidays or special occasions until the 1940s, during WWII, when major-league clubs and those in the other major sports started playing it regularly.
Still, it’s not like the anthem is played at other public events involving celebrities or large gatherings of fans, certainly not at awards shows or rock concerts or movie premieres. Heck, it’s not even played before sessions of Congress or a State of the Union address. So unpatriotic!
If it’s not mandated to be played before the President goes to work or golfing again or whatever it is he does daily — or before the rest of America starts its workday, for that matter — why are NFL players and other athletes held to a different standard?