White Congressman Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, was furious that Super Bowl goers didn’t stand for what he dubbed the “Negro National Anthem” on Superbowl Sunday.
The National Football League has begun each Super Bowl with the musical selection “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which several activists have dubbed “the black national anthem.”
Although the NFL previously sang the black anthem at other games, it was not until last year’s Super Bowl that the song was officially played live on the field before kickoff.
The National Anthem, sometimes known as “The Star-Spangled Banner,” has been the center of debate in the National Football League for a long time. Many black players, including Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers, kneeled in protest of the country’s treatment of Black Americans. The NFL made it a rule in 2018 that players couldn’t leave the locker rooms if they intended to take a knee during the national anthem.
Cohen was displeased to see so few spectators rising to their feet to applaud R&B artist Andra Day’s rendition of the controversial tune.
People who disagreed with Cohen’s assumption that the audience should stand throughout the performance of the song quickly panned his X post.
Moreover, Cohen spread the myth that the “Star-Spangled Banner” contains allusions “to slavery.”
A fact check reveals nothing in the United States national anthem ever relates to the institution of chattel slavery in the country.
In the song’s third verse, a line refers to the “hireling and slave.”
However, the practice of impressment—the abduction and subsequent forced service of American sailors by the British Navy—was the subject of this passage. It had nothing to do with slavery.
Written to commemorate the War of 1812, the song focuses on impressment– to force someone to fight in the military– as a significant element.
