I will never stand for a racial anthem

The NFL continues its modern tradition of racially politicizing sports entertainment and bullying anyone who opposes it. 

At Super Bowl 2024 on Sunday night, Andra Day performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the song most radicals love to call the “black national anthem,” alongside the performances of the national anthem and “America the Beautiful,” with the intention of equating it to both as a third paragon of Americanism. 

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” is a good song, and its message is an important one, but only within the correct context. The original purpose of the song, written in 1900, was to address the hope for black people to achieve equal rights. For decades now, they have had those rights. Day and activists like her are attempting to conflate their modern critical race theory agenda with the core identity of the nation through the appropriation and misattribution of this song. 

Day said she looks forward to the establishment of a “black national anthem, or anthems that represent other people, or a universal anthem that represents everyone.”

As contradictory as that statement is, someone should inform Day that her wish has been granted. It’s called “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and it has been the national anthem of the United States since 1814.

Furthermore, Day’s wish was granted from within the founding principles of the nation in the words that inspired the anthem, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal,” which were written in the nation’s founding document in 1776. 

Clearly, most people in the stands at the Super Bowl still agreed with this belief because they incurred the wrath of Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), who took to X to complain that “very very few” of them stood for Day’s fake anthem, which he claimed painted “not a pretty picture of Super Bowl crowd.”

Senatorial candidate Kari Lake issued on X what could be considered a response by the many who refused to betray their national identity by standing: “I’m STILL not standing for this garbage. One nation. One anthem.” 

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To call any song an anthem of something implies it is meant to identify a group of people as special and distinct from all others. A national anthem rallies together the people of a nation to distinguish them from all other nations. Calling a song a “black” national anthem not only implies there is some exclusively black class in America’s borders but that the members of said class are more special than everyone else.

Agendas such as these show the obvious yet overlooked racist ambitions of those on the Left who claim to fight for racial justice in a country where that has been long achieved. And I, for one, will never respect or stand for any sort of anthem that elevates one race over another. 

Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner winter fellow.