[blueash]

During the time the Philadelphia Flyers were the best team in hockey, in the mid 80s, that team did not play the Star Spangled Banner at all before key games. Instead they opted for Kate Smith singing God Bless America. Was there an outcry about not playing the "National Anthem" of course not. Did white people say they were going to stop watching hockey if Francis Scott Key's song was omitted? Of course not. So the issue is not that all games must be preceded by a particular song and only that song. And the NFL is not omitting the national anthem, they are electing for one game out of the entire season to play an additional song before the national anthem. Have stadiums had music before the national anthem before? Surely they have.

So the real objection here, it seems to me, is not that the official anthem is not being played as it is being played. The objection is that a song which attempts to capture something of the black experience in America is also being played. We can't have that can we? Nothing racial at all about objecting to a song about the black experience which is preceding not replacing the national anthem. Right?