From The Ramparts

                                                         

                                                       Junious Ricardo Stanton

                                             Colin Kaepernick vs Francis Scott Key       

            The corporate mind control apparatus is making a big deal about NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand during the playing of the US National Anthem. I think the media has a reprehensible motive for focusing on Kaepernick. When he did it the first two times nothings was said or written because he was injured and not in uniform. When he suited to play in the third pre-season game he was noticed and when asked about it he articulated his reasons and a contrived controversy ensued.

            Controversy sells papers, controversy increases viewers for the TV and cable propaganda machines. But we must always remember the main message of the Western media is Eurocentric domination. There are numerous reasons the media is focusing on Colin Kaepernick: 1) to take our minds of the four white swimmers who brought international discredit to the US by their antics in Rio when they urinated in and vandalized a convenience store and fabricated the story they were robbed. The swift US PR/media campaign to minimize the damage demonstrates just how powerful the US media is. 2) the media is playing the race card with Kaepernick which is always guaranteed to trigger emotions further obfuscating the national shame Ryan Lochte, Jimmy Feigen, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger caused by their actions in Rio, 3) the media is making Kaepernick the scapegoat, the villain and substitute target of white ire,  4) the media's demonizing of Kaepernick 5) the media is subliminally defendng the militaristic theme of the Star Spangled Banner.

            There are other issues, but I'll just stick with these for the time being. The main point I want to convey is Colin Kaepernick is a young man of conscience who is doing something valuable that could cause him great "loss". He risks the loss of endorsements, his position as a professional athlete and the vilification of white America. The good news is his stand is gaining ground with other NFL players. Now the NFL is going to have to balance the line of respecting his First Amendment rights with their need to keep their white patrons satisfied.

            Lost in all of this is the fact the man who wrote the Star Spangled Banner was a successful lawyer, a slave owner and an influential founder and life long supporter of the American Colonization Society an organization created in 1816 whose goal was to send free Blacks back to Africa, the Caribbean or South America. Key remained a faithful advocate of the ACS until his death in 1843.

            The Star Spangled Banner was written by Key in 1814 during the War of 1812. It  became popular and was first used officially by the US Navy in 1889. In 1931 it became the United States' national anthem. Most people have no idea how racist the song's lyrics are since they usually only sing the first verse. This is third verse's words "And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave". These words were directed at the Blacks who fought for the British who promised them their freedom if Britain prevailed in the war. Key a slave owner and poet spewed his venom against our ancestors who made the decision to be free by fighting against their American oppressors. Black people should applaud them for their decision which offered a way out of the hell they were experiencing at the hands of the Americans!

            Colin Kaepernick may not even be aware of the words or history of the song because his protest is against the ongoing legacy, patterns of bigotry and violence against people of color!  The corporate media is using him, but that shouldn't detract from our respect for him and what he is doing.

                                                                        -30-