Singers question national anthem, even join protest
NEW YORK — Grammy-winning R&B singer Anthony Hamilton has sung the national anthem in the past. Don’t ask him to sing it in the near future.
Hamilton’s frustration with “The Star-Spangled Banner” is shared by some other black Americans, who feel like the tune sung before major U.S. events is not the best representation of all Americans.
That sentiment became part of the national conversation after the NFL’s Colin Kaepernick announced he would not stand for the anthem in protest of racial discrimination against blacks in the United States, particularly after a spate of police shootings of African Americans.
Since Kaepernick has decided to take a knee while the anthem plays at games, others have followed suit, from the NFL to high school to other sports.
There are still plenty of singers singing the national anthem at major events. But Hamilton is among those who are reconsidering whether they’d do so.
“I’m gonna take a little time away from the anthem until it starts feeling like it’s for me,” said Hamilton, who is black. “We need a new song, one that really speaks for all of us, or bring some new life to the one that we have.”
Several musicians declined to be interviewed for this story. The anthem, one of the most popular songs in the country, has become a badge of honor for musicians when invited to sing it, and a well-received live performance of the song normally boosts an act’s career. Whitney Houston’s performance of the anthem at the Super Bowl is considered one of her greatest, and one of the best renditions of it.
Alicia Keys, who has performed the anthem at the Super Bowl and other events throughout her 15-year career, said she gets where the San Francisco quarterback is coming from.
“I understand. I understand,” she said.
Keys, who like Kaepernick is biracial, said that she learned new information about the anthem after the athlete’s protest sparked countless articles. A third verse that is rarely sung includes the lines, “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.”
Francis Scott Key, the song’s author, was a supporter of slavery.
“To actually read the facts, you know, I can understand it. It’s time for a lot of things to change. We know what this country was built off of and based off of, and it’s time for that to evolve. It’s time for the story to evolve,” she said.
“There’s some great things that have carried on for generations and generations and there’s some things that have to change, like that was an old way of thinking and now if we’re going to move toward really looking at each other in the same eyes and in the spirit of oneness, then we have to make changes from past mistakes.”
A Quinnipiac University poll released this week shows that most white Americans disapprove of protests by athletes during the national anthem while black Americans approve of the protests by an even larger margin.
Hamilton said he currently feels mixed emotions about being black in America in these racially charged times, and even sometimes feels betrayed.
