Voices: The Conservative outrage over the ‘Black National Anthem’ is predictable and telling

You would think the MAGA lot would love a song praising liberty. Not so, it turns out, if it is sung by a Black woman.

Last night, the incomparable Sheryl Lee Ralph sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing” – dubbed the “Black national anthem” long before “The Star-Spangled Banner” was adopted as the official national anthem – at the Super Bowl, arguably the biggest night in America’s civic religion. What should have been a unifying moment (again, this is a song about a love of freedom and liberty, not unlike “God Bless America” or “My Country, ‘tis of Thee”) has turned into yet another opportunity for the Jim Crow caucus to divide Americans and stoke a culture war.

Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene praised white singer Chris Stapleton’s rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner while complaining that “we could have gone without the rest of the wokeness,” which the Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis correctly identified as a dog whistle for Blackness. Meanwhile, fellow Trumpian Lauren Boebert was quick to point out that “America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM,” asking “[w]hy is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!?”

If anyone is trying to divide us, though, it’s Ms Boebert, Ms Greene, and their ilk. They are representative of the party that is currently and successfully stoking a culture war against anyone who isn’t white, straight, cisgender, and Christian.

Ms Boebert once said that Black people have “bad hair” and suggested that fellow congresswoman Representative Ilhan Omar, a Muslim woman born in Somalia, is a “terrorist.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, for her part, has spoken at white nationalist conferences where she hung around with the likes of Nick Fuentes, a well-known white supremacist. She has said that Black people are “held slaves to the Democratic party,” called a Jewish man a Nazi and trafficked in antisemitic conspiracy theories, and praised Confederate monuments.

The rest of the party isn’t any better. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is waging a culture war in which he is using the power of the state to silence dissenting voices, most recently by banning the Advanced Placement African American Studies class from high schools in the Sunshine State. Last year, several Republican candidates ran campaign ads with racist subtext, including referring to candidates of color as “different” and “dangerous.” Former president Donald Trump famously referred to all Mexicans as “rapists,” while Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville said that Democrats “think the people that do the crime are owed…” when discussing reparations for the descendants of enslaved people, thus equating Black Americans with criminals.

Republicans know what they’re saying. Last year, Congressman Jim Banks of Indiana – then chair of the Republican Study Committee – encouraged candidates to fight the culture wars. I’m not exaggerating here: the name of the memo was literally: “Lean into the culture war.”

“We are in a culture war,” the memo read. “On one side, Republicans are working to renew American patriotism and rebuild our country. On the other, Democrats have embraced and given platform to a radical element who want to tear America down.”

Presumably that “radical element” includes allowing a beloved national figure (Emmy-winner Sheryl Lee Ralph) to sing a century’s old hymn (“Lift Every Voice and Sing”) at the nation’s biggest sporting event (the Super Bowl). Before that, it included the Little Mermaid being portrayed by a Black actress, a music video by Lil Nas X, Beyonce’s 2016 Super Bowl halftime show, Colin Kaepernick and his fellow athletes kneeling for the de jure national anthem (I’m beginning to see a pattern), and -- of course -- the audacity of Santa Claus and Jesus not being white.

It’s a losing strategy; Republicans have lost the past three elections. Still, they can’t give it up.

To understand why, cast your minds back to 2009. Panicked by the election of the nation’s first Black president, the Tea Party movement along with its leaders in both elected office and the media began spreading the defamatory lie that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya. This was meant to disqualify him from office, but it was also meant to underscore his alleged “otherness.” Saying Obama “was born in Kenya” was a convenient shorthand for saying “he isn’t really American.”

And that is what this is really about: policing who is and isn’t really American. They are used to being able to dictate to the rest of us what is and isn’t American. The existence of a Black national anthem is the assertion of Black agency, a declaration of pride and autonomy from white power structures that Republicans cannot countenance because they cannot even countenance the legal equality of Black Americans.

Last year, the US Justice Department filed suit alleging that Florida targeted Black voters with its new restrictive voting laws. Last month, the Republican Women’s Club of South Central Kentucky publicly showed the video of Breonna Taylor’s killing at a dinner in a public restaurant, turning what many consider a modern-day lynching into, well, a modern-day lynching.

Acknowledging the social equality of Black people is out of the question for Republicans, then. Barack Obama couldn’t be a legitimate president for the same reason “Lift Every Voice and Sing” can’t be considered an American anthem: to acknowledge as much would be to acknowledge the social equality of Black Americans, and the Republican Party is not willing to do that.

Consider how many other songs have been sung at the Super Bowl in addition to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” all without controversy. Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert performed “America the Beautiful” at the 2012 Super Bowl. The U.S. Armed Forces Chorus sang it in 2016. In 2003, French Canadian singer Celine Dion performed “God Bless America” at the Super Bowl. No one found it offensive.

Yet the moment the NFL began playing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before games, the addition of other patriotic music became controversial. This is no accident. A song beloved and sacred to many if not most Black Americans – that reflects on their experiences in and love of this country and their history which is by extension its history – infuriates conservatives and Republicans because it reminds them that this country is not only theirs.

As chance may have it, this is Black History Month. Ms Boebert, Ms Greene, and their ilk should take the opportunity to remember that Black history is American history. Black culture is American culture. And the Black national anthem can be a national anthem we all get behind, if we only let go of our hate and bigotry. Rather than screeching and squalling about division, Republicans would do well to join hands with the rest of us.

Let’s follow the words of that sacred hymn and lift every voice and sing until earth and heaven ring with the harmonies of liberty – not just for Republicans, or white Americans, but for all of us who call this country home.