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Happy #BlackHistoryMonth
Still haven't made it to Black history yet. I'm still working through white US history.
Q: Why do so many Black people refuse to sing the US national anthem? I'm sorry, but that seems unpatriotic to me. Plus, the Whitney Houston version is amazing! Why don't you like Whitney Houston? Whitney!
A: Because more Black folk know the true history of the anthem, and some can't get past the racism.
Read this minithread.
https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109574942472956736
Welcome back!
1/N
I do sing the anthem (off-key, and with a suspect falsetto for that high note. Hey, we can't all be Prince! Some of us have to be Barry White. OK Biz Markie).
But I'm making an informed choice, because I know white US history.
I don't judge Black folk or folk of any color that choose not to sing it, as "un-American" or "un-patriotic."
For some folk, American patriotism means unquestioning loyalty to the ideals of a white supremacist America. For them, anti-racism itself, is anti-America.
That's a cynical and pessimistic view of what the US stands for, and I reject it completely.
To me, the US stands for a nation of all of us, that has lofty ideals that we don't live up to. But we strive to get closer to them over time.
The very notion of who gets to criticize the US, is wrapped up in racism. Racists afford white people license to criticize the country (e.g. "we used to be a proper country!" and " Make America great again!"). But Black folk are not afforded this same freedom.
If history erasers can repurpose the meaning of the statue of liberty to mean "white immigrants" I can repurpose the anthem to mean that we're about to win this women's soccer game! 
And if the players like the president, they'll speak on that, and will accept his phone call.
And if the players don't like the president because he's running a hateful administration that advances white supremacy and misogyny, they'll block his number, and speak on that too. 
That's how this democracy thing works. This isn't feudalism. We aren't serfs. This isn't monarchy. We aren't subjects.
This is a constitutional federal republic. If we don't like something about our government we change it. That might be changing the leaders, changing the laws, changing the systems that enforce those laws, or changing the very Constitution itself.
And stop pretending that the Constitution was some perfect document. The thing even has typos in it! They misspelled Pennsylvania!
@mekkaokereke One thing I really wish more Americans understood is that there are free, democratic societies all over the world that change their flags and national anthems all the time, and we could do so here in the US, too. In fact, reviewing the emblems of the nation and updating them is actually an incredibly democratic thing to do and untethers them from the Cult Of The State, which makes us more free rather than less so.
@roadriverrail @mekkaokereke Thinking of the flag & anthem changes I'm aware of: South Africa, Myanmar, Rwanda all represented a hope to leave behind some former trauma (Apartheid, colonial past, genocide, respectively). The other examples I know of new flags and anthems typically came through secession or break-up of a union (USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia). Are there examples you have in mind?
@roadriverrail @mekkaokereke I dislike jingoism & the symbol-worship too, and it definitely is not as prominent in other countries, but I'm not aware of a lot of symbol-swapping without some legacy of trauma.
@dneary @mekkaokereke Off the top of my head, there's Australia's active state of debate over its flag and the wanton use of an unofficial alternate flag. Canada's flag is very modern and has been the subject of some controversy based on aesthetics. "O Canada" has been revised to include all genders. IIRC, in Spain, they just ditched the words in 1978? There are more, though I confess I'm a bit smothered and don't think I can dig them all out.
@dneary @mekkaokereke At a lower level, US states have changed their flags and songs without major traumas, too.
@roadriverrail @dneary @mekkaokereke Suspect the changes in Spain were due to the end of Franco's reign in 1975. Certainly traumatic, and I think the general approach of "let's just move on and pretend the bad shit didn't happen" hasn't necessarily been the best idea in terms of the nation coming to terms with what happened. Don't quote me, I'm not a historian.
@jocrossick @roadriverrail @dneary @mekkaokereke The UK genderswapped its anthem just last year.
@roadriverrail @dneary @mekkaokereke
As far as Canada goes, that's correct - the current flag was adopted in 1965, the national anthem in 1980, and one line of its English lyrics was updated for gender inclusiveness in 2018 (for some reason they didn't go back to the original 1908 version of the line, which was also gender inclusive, but instead used a new version of the line).
The French lyrics didn't need updating, as they don't have any gendered language. They are however very theocratic.
@roadriverrail @dneary @mekkaokereke
We ditched the bit about killing the the Scottish when they became us. A whole verse.
@roadriverrail @dneary @mekkaokereke Australia changed the anthem for gender in the 1984 and removed 'young' in 2021 because Indigenous people have been here 60,000 years+ I'd still love the flag to be updated
@dneary @roadriverrail @mekkaokereke the reason why you don't hear about things like the somewhat recent change to the French flag is that no one really cares, unless their is a lot of emotional trauma tied to the issue.
Short story the French changed the blue in their flag to show solidarity with the EU, Macron changed it back.
@dneary @roadriverrail @mekkaokereke just for fun I will add another story a bit closer to home. Sweden changed the colour once in the 70's to make it more printable, and again in the 00's to improve the rendering on computer screens.
@dneary @roadriverrail @mekkaokereke The changes to the South African flag is some of the most vexilologically awesome symbolism that I can think of.
@jonathanpeterson @roadriverrail @mekkaokereke Learned a new word... I had never heard of vexillology.
@dneary @roadriverrail @mekkaokereke it's one of those most excellent ones that's fun to use. I know because I have a friend who is an amateur vexillologist (does a GREAT job of designing soccer team supporter flags and badges)
@jonathanpeterson @roadriverrail @mekkaokereke As a side note, the FIAV (the International Federation of Vexillological Associations) has an awesome flag, as you would expect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Federation_of_Vexillological_Associations