Latest / Chuck Douglas / The Super Bowl and The Black National Anthem

Transcript

The Super Bowl and The Black National Anthem · Chuck Douglas

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The NFL worried about a called protest at the Super
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Bowl over guess what do you know what this is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: all about?
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Have you seen this one?
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: What could you be protesting at the Super Bowl?
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: The Black National Anthem?
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Who's protesting? I'm assuming people who don't like the Black
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: National Anthem? And I don't get this. I seriously, I
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: mean this very sincerely. Are you familiar? I mean, I
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: know you're a white guy with Kentucky roots. Are you
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: familiar with the Black National Anthem? Yeah? I know what
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: it is.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: But if you don't like it, that's fine.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: But beautiful song, right, I mean, is it hurting somebody?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: It's apparently so it is a beautiful song. It's actually
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: written in eighteen ninety nine. When was the Civil Wars
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: sixty eighteen sixty five that concluded something like that.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, so it was written in eighteen ninety nine. Things
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: were just chae.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Black people were no longer slaves, not really sure what
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: necessarily they were, what their role was in the United
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: States of America. James Weldon Johnson wrote a poem called
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Lift Every Voice and Sing, and then it was his
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: brother John Johnson who set the poem to music in
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine. Eighteen ninety nine song first performed by
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: five hundred children at the segregated Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: where Weldon Johnson was the principal. They did that to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday in nineteen hundred. NAACP adopted the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: song as the Black National anthem in nineteen nineteen. So
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: there's your history of the song. And people have apparently
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: raising objections over the song. Most of them, I would
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: venture to say, don't know the song, haven't paid attention
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to the song, have no idea what the history of
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the song is. And so I consider it my duty
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: to inform you about this history, the origins of the song,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: where it came from, why it was even first performed,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And if you are not familiar with the song, I
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: want you to listen. Listen closely to the lyrics the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: first verse of the song. Lift every voice and sing
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: till earth and heaven ring ring with the harmonies of liberty.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies, Let
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Sing a song full of the hope that the present
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: has brought us. Facing the rising sun of our new
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: day begun, let us march on till victory is won. Now,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: think about this turn of the century, from the nineteenth
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: into the twentieth century, slavery over this new dawn, and
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: this song.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: That says, let us rejoice, Let us.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Ring with the harmonies of liberty, and let that rejoicing
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: go as high as the listening skies.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: An allusion to God.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Let it resound as loud as the rolling sea. We
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: sing a song full of the faith that the dark
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: past has taught us. Think about that line, through all
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the slavery and the history of the United States of America.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Sing a song full of the faith that the dark
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: past has taught us. Sing a song full of the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: hope that the present has brought us. Things are a changing,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Facing the rising sun of our new day begun. Yeah,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: it's a new day in America. Let us march on
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: till victory is won. Not let us lay back and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: wait on a government program. Not let us sag our
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: pants and sell drugs on the corner. Let us march
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: on till victory is won. It's an incredibly hopeful, positive song.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And for anybody who goes.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: Well again, it's black black, It's all over with. I
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: mean it was eighteen ninety nine, It's all over with.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: That song has as much place in our Americana as
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: does the Confederate flag, the history of Southerners who honor
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the Confederacy, the roots of the Southern way of life.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: That they are racist and want slavery back.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: It means that they understand this is part of our heritage.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm good with that.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: You like the Confederate flag, you want to paint it
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: on your car, I don't care. I'm good with you
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: honoring your heritage, your roots. Man, that's fine. But I
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: say give that same consideration to what is now known
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: as the Black National Anthem. I do believe, quite frankly,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: it was originally the Negro National Anthem. I'm pretty sure
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I heard that at one time, although it's not in
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: this Wikipedia history I read to you earlier. But it's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: an incredibly hopeful, powerful song about learning from our past,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: gaining strength from our trials and our tribulations, and standing
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: tall and walking strong into a bright new future. What
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the hell is not American about that? I don't see
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: how anybody can object to that song? I really don't,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: or maybe that's just me A two one nine eight
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: six number A two one WTV an Tony, you're on
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: the LEGSI Retirement Group dot com phone lines.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Ay?
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Good? So? So yeah, it's a nice song. And I
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: think a couple things. Number one, we already have a
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: national anthem and in nationals for everybody you know.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: All absolutely absolutely.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: And that's fine if they want to have a black
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: national anthem. And I'm fine with a Confederate flag. I
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: totally agree with you. I mean that's southern. You know
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: that that was a way of life.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: But anyways, the only promise. So what if somebody comes
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: out and says, okay, so we want to do a
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: white national anthem, and so every game there's three there's
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: three anthems. There's the national anthem, there's the black anthems,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: and then there's the white anthem. How's that going to
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: go down?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Well, the current national anthem a lot of people, that
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: would be the first argument you got. It was written
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: by white people, came from a white country. You know.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: The tune to our national anthem is actually a drinking
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: song from England that which I wish we could have
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: done better than that, But that would be the first
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: thing people.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Will tell you.
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: Look, the national anthem is a white national anthem because
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: black people didn't have the ability to write an anthem
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: about anything at the time, y'all decided that was a
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: national anthem.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: That's the first argument you would get. And I don't
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: disagree with you. Yeah, you know what, there's no such
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: thing as white entertainment television. There's no national Association for
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: the Advancement.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Of white people. I get it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: What I'm saying is, I guess this is such a
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: positive thing. This isn't BLM give me some money, create
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: a program and give me reparations. This is a very hopeful, strong,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and I think a uniting song because it's about coming
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: together and moving forward and believing in liberty. And that's
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: my god, Tody, isn't that what we want for everybody?
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Okay? I just I seriously, I see no problem with
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: this song. Now.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I don't want it to replace our national anthem where
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: our national anthem traditionally should be sung.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: But I also don't think that this is something where
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: where you stand up and say, oh no, this is
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: a deal breaker I can't support. I'm not gonna watch
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the super Bowl just because I don't care about the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: chiefs of the eggless. It is eggless, isn't it, Yes,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the eggless, So I won't be watching. And I can
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: watch all the commercials online, so I don't need to
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: bother myself with three and a half hours of meetingless
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: football in order to watch the commercials.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with this song.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm sorry that we are so distracted and and
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you know, philosophically divided that people do have an issue
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: with it. Don't I'm asking you don't. This is like
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the smallest possible thing I could think of to argue
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: It really is. It really is.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Let us rejoice that are rejoicing rise Hi is the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: listening Skies. Sing a song full of the faith that
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the dark past has taught us, and sing a song
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: full of hope that the present has brought us. Great song,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: great sentiment. That should be the last argument anybody should have.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Or again, maybe that's just me.