NFL owners and the POTUS would have you believe the entirety of the rest of America, aside from a handful of kneeling SJWs, shows proper deference for the national anthem.
I call bullshit, and I’m not even going to make you think hard about why.
If you’ve ever been to a UVA football or basketball game, for instance, you know.
When the song gets to the part about “whose broad stripes and bright stars …”
Yeah, what does the crowd do?
Yells “Hoos!” Not as vociferously as in the past, but you still hear it.
Go to an Orioles game in Camden Yards. I had to prepare my wife the first time she went to an O’s game, because if you’re not ready, it will shock you how loud the crowd yells “O’s!”
The sound of 40,000 fans all screaming that at the top of their lungs can be overwhelming.
Check out a Washington Capitals game. And actually, last night, Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Caps were on the road in Tampa, and you got the same effect as you’d get at the Cap One Arena.
Fans shout “Red!” at “rockets red glare,” and then “O’s!” at the same spot as you get at Orioles games.
And I’m not meaning to just pick on our local teams here. I’d be willing to bet that other fan bases across the country have their own anthem traditions.
This all on top of the din of noise you hear from the concourse level during a live pregame anthem from people finding their ways to their seats, standing in line to get a beer and a hot dog, and the like.
The concessions people don’t stop selling stuff during the anthem. People walking around don’t stop talking with their buddies or on their mobiles during the anthem.
Fans use the anthem to show their solidarity with their teams and with each other.
The NFL and POTUS have an issue with disrespect to the anthem not with any of that, but with guys forced to, say it like it is, to serve as props for business and commercial purposes, who aren’t buying beers and hot dogs, not talking with their buddies, not yammering away on their phones, not actually audibly outbursting, instead using the occasion to bring attention to racial injustice.
How dare they, indeed.
Fire the sons of bitches. Deport them.
Land of the free, home of the brave.
Column by Chris Graham
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