Thread: As The World Burns, Op-Ed Asks Searing Question: ‘Is It Time To Ditch The Star-Spangl

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As The World Burns, Op-Ed Asks Searing Question: 'Is It Time To Ditch The Star-Spangled Banner?'
"Key was not only a slave-owner, he zealously defended the institution in his legal work"...
ijreview.com

As The World Burns, Op-Ed Asks Searing Question: ‘Is It Time To Ditch The Star-Spangled Banner?’

12,052 Shares By Mike Miller 9 hours ago


To many Americans, the rise of the terrorist Islamic State is among the major threats facing the country. Or the continued flow of illegal aliens across our southern border. Or the economy and the fact that a record number of us – some 92 million – are no longer in the labor force.
But Saturday night, in its lead story, Politico Magazine published this burning question: “Is it time to ditch the Star-Spangled Banner?” According to author Tim Widmer, its lyrics are racist:

One line taunts the British for their failure, and specifically calls out “the hireling and slave” who joined the British forces. That line calls attention to a fact that considerably weakens the song’s claim to celebrate “the land of the free” – the presence of significant numbers of African-Americans, fighting with the British in hopes of finding a personal freedom they had no chance of securing in the United States. Among the invading army were at least 200 “colonial marines”—escaped slaves from Virginia and Maryland, eager to fight against their former masters.

As Widmer sees it, Francis Scott Key was not only a slave owner, the anthem’s third verse references escaped American slaves who fought on the side of the British:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

(Widmer seems to forget that the Brits didn’t outlaw slavery until 1833 – 19 years after the 1814 Fort McHenry battle which inspired him to write the song.)
The first verse of the anthem – which is the only one we sing – ends with a question: “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” In the third verse, Key answers the question: yes, it does.
Widmer suggests that America the Beautiful should replace The Star-Spangled Banner as our national anthem. While it’s a beautiful song, imagine the reaction from some if that were that to happen: “America! America! God shed His grace on thee…”

So here’s the question: Are we going to start throwing out inspirational words from the past because we choose to judge the people who wrote them in the context of today’s world?
From The Star-Spangled Banner, to “In God We Trust” on our currency to the Pledge of Allegiance, if political correctness were to prevail, it would only be the beginning.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/09/1777...angled-banner/

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