No, The Star Spangled Banner Is ‘Not’ Racist

There are Americans are calling to replace the Star-Spangled Banner as the national anthem amid the nationwide Marxist trend of removing monuments, statues, monikers, and other symbols that have ties to slavery.  Who are we kidding?  They’re even going after Abraham Lincoln who abolished slavery.  These Marxist losers are trying to burn our society to the ground and rebuild it as their version of a utopian heaven on earth.  Trust me, you would not like what they have in store for you.

Francis Scott Key wrote the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry” on September 14, 1814 when he saw the US flag flying over Fort McHenry at dawn’s early light, according to the Smithsonian Institute.

This poem was later converted into the lyrics for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which in turn later became the official national anthem of the United States in 1931.

Nevertheless, ignorant, America-hating troublemakers are now asking for a new national anthem because of Key’s ties to slavery.

According to the Smithsonian, Key was a slave owner and defended slave owners’ rights to own human property.  That much is true.  But he also represented cases for freed slaves.  It wasn’t complicated.  Slaves were considered chattel, but it wasn’t because of their color.  There were white slaves and Native American slaves and Asians throughout the period.  That doesn’t diminish the horrors of slavery, but it needs to be said to understand that what Key wrote in the poem had nothing to do with black slaves.

I, aS white man can empathize but admit that I can’t possibly fully understand the angst that the idea of American slavery has on modern-day black Americans, but at the same time, we can say that even though many, certainly not all, Founding Fathers were slave owners, they were still great men in that they designed our current system that has made it possible for Americans today to live in the greatest country in the world.  You can disagree with that, but isn’t your ability to disagree with other people’s beliefs part of the rights that the Founders gave us?  Many other countries do not have that very fundamental basic right of Freedom of Speech, which includes beliefs.

Slavery was a terrible, dark part of our past, and we strive every day to be a more perfect union, but to erase all the good that the Founders did in light of modern-day understandings, is to say that nothing good ever came of the Founding era and that our Constitution means nothing, even though it is the greatest document for freedom ever written.

By the same understanding, it is wrong to claim that because Key’s family owned slaves that everything he did in life should be canceled out.

A change.org petition was recently created to change the national anthem to “America the Beautiful.”  I say don’t let them get away with it, because their arguments are based on lies and ignorance.

The petition says that the song “contains racism, elitism and even sexism embedded in its third and fourth stanzas.”

No, it does not, and if the race-hustlers involved ever cared to read up on history they would realize how foolish they really are in this matter.

Petition creators additionally argue the song is focused on victory and military strength and doesn’t exemplify the American values of brotherhood, national unity, and patriotism. Additionally, they cite references of inequality among men and women.

Those encouraging the change additionally argue that “America the Beautiful” is not only timeless but also “expresses and celebrates the highest of all ideals – i.e. brotherhood within our borders, deference to our natural resources. and indirectly alludes to the safeguarding and conservation of our air, water, and land. And in its later stanzas, it also clarifies just laws, heroism and patriotism.”

Just to be clear, the argument in favor of replacing the national anthem with America the Beautiful is just a ruse to get the Star-Spangled Banner thrown out, because of the seldom sung third verse in the song that the hustlers don’t understand.

Here’s the third stanza of the song:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

So, because the word “slave” was used, these people think that Francis Scott Key, who believed at the time, during the night, that he was witnessing the loss of Fort McHenry, watching as a captured soldier from a British ship off the coast while the Brits were bombarding the fort, was so racist, hated black people so much, that while writing a poem about the relief of seeing the Stars and Stripes still standing by only the light of the explosion of bombs bursting in air, he just couldn’t help himself and had to add a dig to slaves.

Pure nonsense.  It’s crucially important that you understand this.

Key did use the term “slave” in the poem.  But in 2020 the term slave means only one thing:  the system of chattel slavery prevailing in Key’s day in Maryland and throughout the American South.

Key was from a slaveholding family and litigated many cases involving slavery issues.  He also argued numerous cases in favor of slaves’ freedom but also prosecuted a prominent abolitionist.

What the people who live in the-history-of-now don’t understand is that in Key’s time, the terms “hireling and slave” had a different meaning.

To some folks who believe the reference of the phrase is racial, it’s significant to know that among the British troops Key fought against in Maryland during the War of 1812 were a group known as the Corps of Colonial Marines, who were, in fact, free persons of color who had formerly been slaves.

At the time Key wrote the poem the word slave had long been used in the English language as an epithet thrown at people of all races, nationalities, and whatnot, some who were in servitude and others who were not.  The modern-day equivalent would be the use of the word bitch.  Bitch is a term used to describe a female dog, but it has also been used as an epithet toward women.  The word is also used to describe someone complaining, or to emasculate someone like “That ANTIFA loser ran away like a little bitch.”

Hireling was a term used to describe mercenaries, or soldiers for hire, who would fight any war on the side that paid the highest.

The British had a thing called “Impressment,” which was a practice where they would attack a nonmilitary ship, like a cargo merchant ship, etc., and conscript the whole crew to fight for them.  They didn’t even have to be on a ship.  The British would kidnap young men and send them into battle and that pissed off a LOT of Americans.

So, when Key wrote the phrase hireling and slave he wasn’t referring to black slaves on a plantation.  He was insulting the British military for not having a large number of their own citizens interested enough in the cause of their war that they had to hire mercenaries and use Impressment to get enough people to fight.  Only people who look for racism behind every corner, under every tree, and between every book’s pages would not do the due diligence of researching why Key used those two terms.  Rather, they just want everything that even sounds remotely like celebrating slavery to be treated as such.  And that’s not the case with our national anthem.

Rich Welsh

Rich is  syndicated opinion columnist for David Harris Jr. and owner of Maga-Chat.com.  He writes about politics, culture, liberty and faith.

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