There’s been a very mixed reaction online to the NFL’s bizarre idea of equality.
America’s National Football League, the largest sports organisation in the US, is set to play two different “national anthems” before every game in the future as controversy over players kneeling during the Star-Spangled Banner to protest racism against black people deepens.
Sources told ESPN:
“Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing,” commonly known as the Black national anthem, is expected to be performed live or played before every Week 1 NFL game”
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a song written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson in 1900 and set to music by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson often and is referred to as the “Black national anthem”.
The official US national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, which was originally a poem about the defence of Fort McHenry in Maryland from the Royal Navy during America’s second war against Britain in 1814 is considered by some to be racist.
This is due to the fact that the author of the poem Francis Scott Key, a lawyer who witnessed the bombardment of the fort, owned slaves.
Indeed, during the riots and violence that have plagued American cities over the past several weeks a statue of Key in San Francisco was toppled.
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