Gabby & the Racist Secret Behind the National Anthem!

 Gabby Douglas, a star African-American gymnast competing in the Olympics, recently ignited controversy for not placing her hand over her heart during the playing of the national anthem. Though Douglas issued an apology explaining it was out of negligence and not intentional, she continued to be subjected to widespread criticisms on social media.

Some inquired to to whether her National Anthem Stance was a  Silent Black Lives Matter Protest and questioned her patriotism. What critics do not realize is that there is a long-standing, secret behind the United States’ national anthem that if revealed would clearly indicate that it is in fact Gabby Douglas who is deserving of an apology.

In Star Spangled Bigotry: The Hidden racist History of the National Anthem, Dr. Jason Johnson writes:

The Star-Spangled Banner” is as much a patriotic song as it is a diss track to black people who had the audacity to fight for their freedom.

In 1812 when the national anthem was written, Britain promised African-Americans freedom from slavery if they fought for their country instead of the United States. In response to this, the third verse of the national anthem issues a death threat to Black Americans who sought their freedom by defecting from the U.S: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.” This death threat issued to Black Americans in the national anthem is fully consistent with the repugnant political views of Francis Scott Key who authored the Star Spangled Banner.

Key referred to black people as “a distinct and inferior race.” As an American lawyer, Francis Scott Key and his family had grown wealthy from slavery and he was a key participant in working to uphold the institution by persecuting abolitionists who fought to end the institution.

While Francis Scott Key repeatedly refers to America as the land of the free and the home of the brave, in How Blacks Built America: Labor, Culture, Freedom, and Democracy by Joe R. Feagin, he reveals a startling fact about the author of the National Anthem. Francis Scott Key “viewed the new nation as a slave holding republic of free white men.” When Black lives matter, we will not have people criticizing Gabby Douglass for  not placing  her hand on her heart during the national anthem. Instead, we would be focusing our criticisms on Francis Scott Key who unapologetically issued death threats to black American slaves seeking their freedom in that very song that later became the national anthem.

Can we craft a society in which black lives matter while continuing to have a national anthem written by Francis Scott Key?

Discuss Below.