Millionaire Jill Scott alters national anthem to bash America
Jack Elbaum
Video Embed
In some circles, hating America is all the craze right now. Last week, on Independence Day, Grammy Award winner Jill Scott performed a rendition of an altered version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” focused on her visceral hatred of the United States.
She sang: “Oh, say can you see, by the blood in the streets. This place doesn’t smile on you, colored child. Whose blood built this land with sweat and their hands. But we’ll die in this place and your memory erased. Oh, say, does this truth hold any weight. This is not the land of the free but the home of the slaves.”
CONGRESS SHOULD SUBPOENA BIDEN’S SECRET EMAILS
Essence tweeted a video of Scott singing this, with the caption, “Everyone please rise for the only National Anthem we will be recognizing from this day forward. Jill Scott, we thank you!”
https://twitter.com/Essence/status/1676594602046812160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The message being sent here is unmistakable: The U.S. is, at root, a terrible place that was, is, and will always be characterized primarily by racism and inherent moral corruption. As such, we can never celebrate America. Rather, we must center every conversation and narrative about the country on our disdain for it.
But this is quite the message for a celebrity who won a Grammy and has a net worth of $12 million to promote about the country that made those things possible for her.
There is a reason why millions of people around the world would literally risk death to come to America: It not only represents but is a beacon of hope and opportunity. To blind oneself to that while simultaneously being among the most significant beneficiaries of the opportunities America affords to its citizens is the height of privilege. Deluding oneself into victimhood on this basis is a truly astonishing thing to see.
This is not to say we cannot, or should not, be open and honest about the U.S.’s history of racism. We can and should. The problem is when it becomes the only thing we are supposed to think or talk about. The reason it is a problem is that it is just not an accurate representation of what America is. It is one element of our history and present, but it is by no means the whole story.
Those who act as if it is the whole story do not represent the majority of people or even the majority of liberals. But it is an ascendant perspective, particularly among young people, which can make it destructive nonetheless.
These activists pretend to walk in the footsteps of people such as James Baldwin, who famously said, “I love America more than any other country in the world, and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” But today, we’re dealing with an entirely different philosophy. Contemporary activists are not simply criticizing America out of a desire to make it a better place truer to its ideals. Rather, they are bashing America because they actually don’t like it. We know this because while activists of the past appealed to America’s founding and living up to its stated ideals, “woke” activists do nothing of the sort.
This is not the only recent example. On the same day, Ibram X. Kendi tweeted a picture of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence with the majority of the authors’ faces blotched out.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
This is not the messaging of a movement that is calling out America out of love. It is the messaging of a movement that centers on the refusal to recognize progress, of which we have had so much, and a desire to replace our national pride and institutions with a different system entirely.
This is a startling realization to come to. But genuinely understanding this is the first step in being able to fight it effectively.
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.