Getting in tune with anthem protest
CHARLOTTE , N.C. — It’s Monday morning and I’m flying out of this city, my eyes red as the rockets’ glare, my head feeling like bombs bursting in air.
Before Sunday’s 49ers-Panthers game, as Colin Kaepernick protested the national anthem played by a black man on a trumpet, superpatriots couldn’t decide which of these two men merited the most vicious outrage: the kneeler or the mangler.
It’s no wonder that the trumpeter, Jesse McGuire, sent this message to Kaepernick, via Charlotte Observer reporter Theoden Janes: “I feel ya.”
McGuire thumped his chest with his fist for emphasis.
“I understand and I applaud his stance,” McGuire said.
He made a point that some people miss, the ones who say Kaepernick should stage his protest where it won’t offend and distract so many people. That would be like playing the national anthem in your basement.
One reason McGuire can “feel” Kaepernick is because the trumpeter encounters many protests. As Jimi Hendrix and Marvin Gaye could tell you, a lot of folks want their “Star Spangled Banner” unmangled, done straight, the same melody to which Mr. Key wrote his words, preferably performed on the original instruments: fife, clavichord and spoons. Either that or sung by the Oak Ridge Boys.
McGuire said he gets a lot of hate mail. Hate mail.
“They call me unpatriotic; they say the anthem is not about me, it’s about America, and to play the theme straight . ... You see, they want us to be like them, and that’s not what America is about.”
I don’t know where McGuire stands on the new North Carolina law that leaves some minorities open to discrimination, including in the use of public restrooms.
On Sunday, I tweeted from Bank of America Stadium, “Crap! I need to use the restroom but I forgot my birth certificate.”
Maybe McGuire’s next gig will be tooting his rebellious version of the anthem in a men’s room stall in the state capitol building in Raleigh.
Then those of us who want to express our personal feelings on the matter will have to decide whether to kneel, sit or stand. Pants at half-staff ? Life is hard.