This unity remains elusive, and sometimes the very moment of unity is itself attacked as being unjust and racist. The word ‘racist’ has become weaponized, and by means of this word’s abuse and misuse, there is confusion about exactly what it might mean.
People often unite around symbols. A piece of music and a bit of cloth stand for ideas and ideals. So it is that the United States flag represents something profound. It was the flag carried into battle during the Civil War to end slavery. It was the flag on the uniforms of those who escorted the Little Rock Nine into educational equity.
The flag is a symbol of justice, freedom, and unity. Martin Luther King understood the flag in this way when he wrote:
Since Crispus Attucks gave his life on Boston’s Commons, black men and women have been mingling their blood with other Americans in defense of this republic. For the protection of our honored flag which still floats untarnished in the breeze, Negro men and women have died on the far flung battle fields of the world.
The national anthem, too, symbolizes the concepts which not only all Americans, but all people, value. Martin Luther King encouraged students in Alabama who stood on the steps of a government building and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” in 1960 in Alabama, and he likewise encouraged Rose Battle English, a gifted vocalist, who sang the national anthem at a “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom” in 1957.
At some relatively recent point in history, some people lost, or forgot, or discarded, the near-universal recognition of the flag and the anthem as unifying symbols. The flag and the national anthem are symbols of justice and unity, and specifically of justice and unity in matters relating to race. But one segment of society doesn’t, can’t, or won’t recognize the meaning of the flag and the anthem.
Martin Luther King incorporated the flag and the anthem into his movement, calling the flag “honored” and “untarnished.” He saw the flag and the anthem as symbols of everything he and his movement worked to achieve.
Yet some, who would present themselves as a continuation of King’s work, now do not see justice and unity in the flag, and do not hear unity and reconciliation in the national anthem. They do not perceive that all which they claim to desire is encapsulated in these two unifying symbols.
The National Football League has been one of several venues in which a group has explicitly denied that these national symbols point to, and contain, the goals for which the group claims to strive. Instead of acknowledging the flag and the national anthem as enshrining justice, they claim that other gestures or rites are needed to symbolize justice.
So some NFL players kneel during the national anthem, refuse to acknowledge the flag, remain in the locker room during the presentation of the flag and the singing of the national anthem, etc., and introduce instead other rituals which they claim to be symbols of justice and unity.
In an October 2020 publication, author Peter Speckhard writes:
People react to competing narratives almost viscerally. For example, at the first NFL game of the season this year, the Houston Texans and the Kansas City Chiefs linked arms at midfield for a “moment of unity” on the issue of racism. The stadium announcer asked the mostly empty (due to the pandemic restrictions) stadium to observe a moment of silence. But the intended moment of silence featured a loud chorus of boos from the few thousand fans in attendance. After the game, superstar player J.J. Watt expressed confusion that anyone would be booing a moment of unity to end racism. Well, it could be that many of the fans were racists opposed to expressions of racial unity. Or it could be that the fans instinctively sensed an alien narrative at work.
To be clear, many of the NFL players who participated in this event and similar events did so to be good sports, and to get along with the other players. But those players who advocated for such events, and their handlers who directed them to do so, ignored the fact that the “moment of unity” which most authentically reconciles all manner of people to each other, and which most directly points to justice, is that moment which centers around the flag and the national anthem.
Because the flag was an integral part of the abolition of slavery, an integral part of school integration and desegregation, and an integral part of movement for civil rights, Martin Luther King embrace the iconography of the flag and the anthem. Civil rights arise from citizenship.
Citizenship is a common bond, and when recognized and understood, unites people across the usual dividing variables: race, religion, ethnicity, language, color, etc.
Peter Speckhard continues:
What I think the fans understood is that the national anthem, for which many NFL players routinely kneel in protest, is itself supposed to be the moment of unity before the game. That’s why the tradition got started and the only reason to perpetuate it. The bitter rivals on the field, the competing fan bases, the furious coaches, and the blind referees might not have anything else in common, but they have their nation in common. The only reason to have a separate moment of unity on the field this year in addition to the anthem was to endorse the idea that the national anthem doesn’t unite Americans. Holding an additional moment of unity only endorses the outlook of those who kneel for the anthem. Two competing moments of unity are actually just one larger moment of disunity. People booing at the moment of unity were not expressing racism. They were rejecting the idea that the American flag and our national anthem actually represent systemic ongoing racism.
If the United States flag, and the “Star-Spangled Banner,” authentically point to justice, then to ignore or oppose such symbols, and to suggest alternative symbols, moves us further from justice, moves us away from unity, and moves us further into bitter division.
Symbols of national unity are effective against racism. To dismantle rituals of national unity is to open the door to increasing racism.
