NFL players are “taking the knee” to protest police brutality and racism. Every African-American player has experienced discrimination based on skin color. That is a fact of life for nearly all young black men in this country. And what better venue for a protest than during “The Star-Spangled Banner”? The racist third stanza decries the former slaves who fought for their freedom on the British side in the War of 1812: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.”
Time for us white folks to get in line. We who were born with all the advantages of whiteness need to kneel with our minority brothers and sisters and acknowledge that the sins of the past have condemned Native Americans to barren reservations, minorities to ghettos. Whites have, through decades of real estate redlining and loan discrimination, created the vast wealth disparity between blacks and whites.
What must it feel like to wake up every morning wondering whether this will be another day of insult and humiliation? So, no, I will not again stand during that song until we have “liberty and justice for all.”
