The NAACP has launched a controversial strike at America's most patriotic song, "The Star-Spangled Banner." As a result of the NFL kneeling debate, the blacks at the California NAACP want to introduce a resolution to state lawmakers that proposes removing The Star-Spangled Banner from it's rightful place as the national anthem.
The idea was spawned by California and Hawaii NAACP president and national board member Alice Huffman who pitched the removal because the lyrics don't mention blacks so it's therefore racist according to her. Huffman also pitched two other resolutions, one to support Colin Kaepernick and another to censor President Trump.
Huffman is adamant that it is not an attack on the flag, "We’re not trying to protest the flag at all. We’re protesting this racist song that has caused so much controversy in America, and we’re just trying to get it removed. So, whatever comes out in the future as a national anthem, we can all stand proudly and sing it."
Huffman entered the third stanza of the song as evidence,
"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."
She says, "If you look at it, there's no way you can think it meant anything great for African-Americans." Air Force veteran and Master Sgt. Ryan Peterson says he disagrees with Huffman's proposal, "I love the national anthem," he said. "It gives me chills every time I hear it."
Peterson also said he has never even heard the third stanza played in public, "It's [a] significantly deeper meaning to an Air Force member, to a veteran, to a veteran in our community, than the perceived disrespect or the perceived racism of the third stanza."
Huffman says she and the NAACP won't stop until the proposal has reached Congress so that a more inclusive song can replace The Star-Spangled Banner.
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Someone should tell them that "hirelings and slaves" is referring to the soldiers forced to fight for the British. They were fighting free men who CHOSE to fight unlike the British soldiers.