First, I hate the idea that our national anthem is set to the tune of an old British drinking song, The Anacreontic Song. And you need a professional to sing it, because it requires an insanely huge vocal range.
“But it was written during the Revolutionary War!”
No, it wasn’t. It was written as a poem by an amateur during the War of 1812, the war where the British torched the White House.
It wasn’t, in fact, until a time still in living memory, 1931, that it became our anthem. My uncle is still alive, born in 1918.
It contains a blatant lie: “The home of the free”. In 1812 it would be decades before the Emancipation Proclamation freed America’s slaves. A nation that tolerates slavery is in no way a land of the free, but the fourth verse assumes that slavery is natural and normal. And even today, we have more prisoners than any other nation on Earth. How can we call ourselves the land of the free with a straight face?
What’s worse, it isn’t even about America! The only American things mentioned are the flag and slavery. The entire poem is about war, and only about war. It’s a violent warmonger’s dream, and was made the anthem only half a decade after the Tulsa massacre and a decade after the first world war.
Our national anthem is un-American.
I’d like to see it dropped, and instead make America the Beautiful our national anthem. It just gives descriptions of our beautiful land, and is in praise of patriotism. You don't have to be a professional to sing it, and in fact you don't even need to be sober, it's that easy to sing.
Wikipedia says “Its lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. The two never met.” Professional lyrics and professional music, wholly written by Americans, unlike our current anthem, written by an amateur poet and set to the tune of a drinking song written by foreign amateur musicians.
But what would you expect from White people in 1931, as depression roared, alcohol was illegal, and Jim Crow was in full force?
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