Quote Originally Posted by marv2 View Post
But don't you find this just a bit hypocritical of some folks? Everyone from Whitney Houston to Rosanne Barr has sang the National Anthem at sporting events. It had the same history and lyrics as it does now!
The hypocrisy around the anthem is manifold, especially when it comes to it being sung before sporting events. I often ask the patriots who are enraged that Kaepernick chose to kneel if they stand when the anthem is sung at home. Most ignore the question and the others lie by saying that they do. I've grown up in a family full of veterans and I've never seen one of them stand when the anthem is sung before an NBA or NFL game. One guy on Facebook chose to lie and say that if he hears it played on the radio while he's driving his rig, he'll pull over and stand outside his truck in attention until it's over. BS for many obvious reasons, not the least that it takes five minutes to pull a semi over on the freeway and brake it down. So if you're such a patriot, why lie about it?

There were two easy ways to handle Kaepernick's protest, one hard one and one deceptive way to view it. The easy ways to handle it would be to look at something else in a stadium with 60 thousand people or simply ignore it. The hard way would be to acknowledge that we are far away from having a country where there is liberty and justice for all by working to change a system that shrugged this week when three cops who were proven guilty of conspiring to cover up the murder of LaQuan McDonald by a fellow cop were acquitted by a judge who acknowledged their conspiracy. And a day later, the pig who pumped 16 bullets into him was given six years for the murder.

God bless everybody who watches the Super Bowl this year, but I won't be one of them. And Gladys can choke on the anthem for all that I care. I wonder if she'd feel the same way if one of her sons was killed by a cop like my brother-in-law was?

And if anybody reading this wonders what the anthem has to do with any of this, I ask what the hell it has to do with football? It galls me to see thousands of people who watch black players compete for their favorite teams, rooting and cheering when they score. But if those players were killed in error or malice by cops the day after they quit, most of those fans would be fine with it. They don't mind black players. But they'll be damned if they care about black people.

"Land of the free" my ass. One day, look up the sentencing discrepancy rates of black people and white people who are convicted of the same crimes. In most cases, the same judge is much harsher about sending black people to prison in the exact same circumstances. This is America.