Why Standing For the National Anthem Is a Symbol of White Supremacy

The threat of violence shouldn’t dictate how people choose to show respect

Image by Walter Rhein

I no longer feel safe when the national anthem is played in public. It seems like during the anthem, there is always a contingent of angry men who take it upon themselves to become “love of the country” enforcers. With scowls on their faces, they twist from side to side, scanning the crowd for somebody who isn’t being “respectful” enough.

The problem with this is that these men have designated themselves as judge, jury, and executioner. A far as they’re concerned, you’re never respectful enough. These men are looking for a fight.

Guys that work themselves into a spittle-spewing rage over the proper decorum during the National Anthem never hold themselves to the same standard they have for everyone else. They’re not supposed to be swaying back and forth looking around, legs bopping at the knees. They’re supposed to be worrying about themselves and their own show of respect.

But that’s never the way it works in the United States. Instead, the entitled, dominant class spends all their time breaking the rules they want enforced for everyone else. They scream and yell about “love of country” and then they are the first to join an angry lynch mob with the intent of overthrowing the government.

Nothing you ever do is ever going to be “respectful” enough. At any moment, these guys might decide that you didn’t take your hat off fast enough, or you were slow getting to your feet, or that your skin color isn’t “American” enough, or they don’t like your language or your religion, or your sexual orientation.

They work themselves into a rage of hostility over the word “respect” and they’re inclined to run up and sucker punch you in the back of the neck. When the anthem plays, you better stand with your back to a wall.

In a free nation, nobody should care how you choose to show respect. That’s what freedom means. It sickens me that we don’t have that basic right in our country. I feel that sickness when I hear the anthem.

We don’t have the freedom to be respectful in the manner of our choosing. it’s all about compliance and obedience under the threat of violence. That’s not freedom, that’s servitude. It’s authoritarian theater designed to prevent us from having the type of conversations that could help us achieve a better society.

Kneeling is respectful

Colin Kaepernick is not the only person to ever kneel for the national anthem. Jehovah’s Witnesses also refrain from participating in anthem ceremonies. It frustrates me to no end that this was never brought up when politicians and the media worked themselves into a frenzy over the Kaepernick protests. I take that omission as evidence to the extent our free thought is controlled.

In fact, I have a friend who is a Jehovah’s Witness, and even he didn’t think of it until I asked him. When I brought it up, his eyes got wide and he shook his head with a self-deprecating laugh, “Why didn’t I notice that?”

In part, Jehovah’s Witnesses consider standing for the anthem to be a form of idol worship. That violates the second commandment.

The same people that designate themselves as “anthem respect enforcers” often work to get the Ten Commandments displayed in public places like schools. Often, they operate on the assumption that the Ten Commandments contain “good life advice” even though few people, even the people who want to put them on display, can recite them.

These are people who can’t recite the Constitution either or they’d know that the First Amendment protects your right to stand or kneel or do whatever you want during the national anthem.

All the talk about “respect” is just a white supremacist dog whistle. They want the Ten Commandments in schools not because they’ve read them or because they believe in them, they want them there to reinforce their rigid demands for compliance to authority. It doesn’t matter that the words contained in documents they claim to revere contradict the actions they demand of us.

It’s not about freedom or respect or patriotism or love of country. It’s only about establishing an excuse to inflict punishment on anyone they don’t like.

The racist history of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’

The truth about The Star Spangled Banner is that it’s the musical equivalent of a Confederate monument. People don’t know this because the true racist history of the United States of America is deliberately buried.

Many Americans are probably under the mistaken impression that The Star Spangled Banner has been the national anthem since the inception of our country. That’s a completely ignorant assumption. The truth is that it wasn’t designated as the national anthem until an executive order in 1916. That’s right in the middle of the Jim Crow era, which should provide some indication of the prevailing mindset of the time.

Even then it was a controversial choice. Today, we only sing the first verse, but Key penned four verses and the third verse, with its references to slavery, is extremely racist.

You’re being coerced into validating white supremacy

Basically, white supremacists took advantage of the power they had during the Jim Crow era to muscle through a racist national anthem. It’s sort of like how they flash the “OK” hand gesture, or assign racist significance to numbers and symbols, or convert historical flags into symbols of white supremacy.

If you were born in 1988, and somebody starts to laugh and wink at you when you say it, that person is trying to coerce you into revealing an affiliation with white supremacy. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s still there, it’s still part of our current reality, and to disregard the insidious way white supremacists impose their viewpoint on society is disrespectful to our country.

The simple truth is that The Star Spangled Banner is a racist dog whistle. When entitled men threaten to beat you if you don’t “respectfully stand” they’re not defending freedom or democracy or the military or the Constitution. Whenever you stand for the anthem, even though you think it represents something else, you’re coerced into participating in a public ceremony to celebrate and validate white supremacy.

Maybe we should all kneel

Lost in the smear campaign launched at Colin Kaepernick is the fact that it was a Green Beret who advised him to kneel in order to protest with respect. That fact doesn’t fit the “anti-military” narrative so it’s disregarded the same way we disregard the fact that kneeling is protected by the First Amendment, and standing for the anthem is prohibited by the second commandment.

It’s impossible to keep track of all the things we’re supposed to say and do in order to show “respect.” White supremacists always bleat out contradictory regulations. You can’t win. That’s by design so that “enforcers” always have an excuse to work themselves up to a murderous rage to attack anyone they want.

Whenever I’ve talked to people from other countries, they’re always shocked by the excessive displays of American patriotism. I’ve heard that some people describe the insistence that school kids chant a marketing jingle designed to sell flags (the pledge) as “cult-like.” Again, there’s a misconception that the Founding Fathers wrote the pledge, they didn’t, it was another racist and the pledge is another dog whistle.

Respect for what?

Anthem controversies are a good starting point into a discussion about the true extent to which white supremacist ideology has been integrated into American culture. Our conditioning is such that we’re largely afraid to discuss these ideas. That’s part of the reason our society never gets better.

Ask yourself, do you truly stand for the anthem out of respect, or is it out of fear for the repercussions if you fail to comply?

How are we supposed to correct an injustice that we’re not even allowed to mention?

We can no longer accept that once somebody accuses you of “disrespect” it’s “inappropriate” to explore the issue. The only respect white supremacists care about is respect for the white race.

I would prefer that my children weren’t indoctrinated into compliance with that false ideology.