Performance

Patriotism as show business - justice optional

Colin Rand Kaepernick is back in the news this week, a full decade after his career was abruptly cut short by, well, racism.

To be precise, Kaepernick was kicked-out into the cold by American political and business elites who refused to countenance any form of reality intruding upon the spectacle they sell.

Ten years later, we have the owner of the 49ers buying council elections in California, while two and a half thousand miles east, we must still endure the man who, in 2016, said of Kaepernick’s understated protest:

“I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try, it won’t happen.”

A US president who is a convicted criminal, a friend of convicted paedophiles, a man whose own idea of “protest” involves inciting his base to storm the nation’s capitol and violently assault officers of the law, THIS person was affronted by a mixed-ethnic American taking a knee in silence.

What exactly is so provocative about calling-out police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem?

Is it because the police, like the armed forces, often serve as the enforcement arm of a largely unaccountable gang called Big Business (and the governments bought and controlled by these same oligarchs)?

Is it because refusing to “perform patriotism” publicly undermines the official narrative underpinning corporate and political power?

Maybe we should look more carefully at the act of kneeling itself…

*****

What is represented by kneeling?

Subservience? Obedience? Humility? Religiosity? Divisiveness?

It all depends on the witness, of course, and their angle of observation.

What is the meaning of a clenched fist salute?

Pride?  Solidarity?  Defiance?  Triumphalism?  Black anger?

In America, as ever, meaning is only inferred and attached to gestures and symbols after checking the ethnicity and skin color of the person using them.

"Respect the flag" and "Respect the national anthem" are phrases used ad nauseum by a certain American sub-culture, a sub-culture which has loaded their own meaning onto a piece of cloth and a tortured melody.

"Respect the flag" and "Respect the national anthem" actually mean "See what I see, feel what I feel, believe what I believe", and most of all, "accept the supremacy of my culture over yours".

People who wrap themselves in the red, white, and blue will never allow others to ascribe their own meanings to the symbols around them, because such free-thinking might leave the back door ajar to a righteous storm raging outside the cozy confines of heartland American kitchens...

This national anthem - so deeply-imbued with "patriotic" meaning - only became the "national anthem" in a formal sense in 1931.

Hardly an “ancient tradition”.

Most American schoolchildren know that the words to the song now called The Star-Spangled Banner were written by a certain Francis Scott Key, after he witnessed the American flag still flying over Fort McHenry near Baltimore, Maryland in 1814, following the British overnight bombardment of that fort during the War of 1812.

Francis Scott Key.  Patriot.  End of lesson.

But wait.  "Angles of observation", "perspectives", and all that.

What do many "white" Christian nationalist flag-wavers claim to loathe the most?  East Coast elites?  High-falutin' lawyer types?

When it comes to Francis Scott Key, they can start ticking those boxes.

The music to this "sacred" anthem was actually lifted from a drinking song once popular in fancy English gentlemen's clubs.

Very private, very exclusive clubs.

And Francis Scott Key would have been plenty familiar with "fancy" things, as he was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth into a well-to-do East Coast planter family.  Mr. Key enjoyed his excellent view of Fort McHenry not from inside the fort alongside the soldiers, but from the deck of a British warship where he had been enjoying the finest of wines while negotiating the exchange of some prisoners, including a physician friend. 

In fairness, Key had already done a brief stint with a local militia, but common soldiering wasn't really his thing.

Francis Scott Key was a lawyer.  And a slaveholder. 

And much like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, two elitist hypocrites from the generation preceding him, Mr. Key often expressed his dislike of the cruelties perpetrated within the institution of slavery. 

But Key didn't actually disapprove of slavery, he merely disapproved of slaveholders who were less "benevolent" than himself. 

Mr. Key often represented (at no cost) abused slaves petitioning for their freedom.  But his benevolent "great white father" hand-wringing did not stop his law practice from helping so-called "good" slaveholders to reclaim their "property". 

Mr. Key used the niceties of American law to help bring runaway slaves to "justice" - that is to say, back into their legally sanctioned condition of lifelong servitude.

A law firm's books must be balanced, of course.  Fine wine isn't cheap.

While he was outwardly a devoutly religious man, Francis Scott Key fought strenuously against the abolitionist sentiment taking root within his religious circles.

Mr. Key would have been able to accept the end of slavery, BUT ONLY IF ALL FREED SLAVES WERE ABLE TO BE EXPEDITED OUT OF AMERICA AND "BACK" TO AFRICA.

By the end of his life, Francis Scott Key's vociferous opposition to abolition was so pronounced that he was actually perceived as a dangerous sympathizer with the southern cause. 

And while we cannot pick our relatives, it is interesting to note that Mr. Key's sister Anne married a certain Roger Brooke Taney in 1806 - the man who would go on to be the Chief Justice who penned the infamous "Dred Scott" decision of 1857 which helped to hasten the start of the Civil War.

Here are Justice Taney's words:

"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in regard to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted; but the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect..."

*****

Few groups in American history are as mired in hypocrisy as the current MAGA-fascists.

Most claim to be Constitutional "originalists", treating the USA's 237-year-old design for self-governance as "Holy Scripture" - immutable, timeless, unchanging.

Except they are only "originalists" when it comes to progressive interpretations of the Constitution which serve social justice (or undermine patriarchy and white supremacy).

The Supreme Court believes it is welcome and entitled to invoke or ignore the original historical meaning of the Constitution's text, if it serves contemporary conservative desires.

This is why supporters of slavery like the aforementioned Roger Brooke Taney felt able to claim that the Constitution should be interpreted in light of the CONTEMPORARY attitudes and views of his own era.

The US Supreme Court of Taney ruled that since the majority of voting Americans had decided OVER TIME that African-Americans were "not quite human", it was therefore constitutionally legal to withhold certain "human rights".

This is also why conservatives in league with the gun lobby and arms industry have been able to find Supreme Court justices able to contort the original meaning of the Second Amendment to the point that one is left wondering if some judges have a proper grasp of English at all.

Yet we know they DO understand the real meaning and intent of the text, and we know we are being gas-lit, once again.

In other words, social conservatives can, in fact, be weirdly, hideously "progressive" in their interpretation of the Constitution - but only when it suits them.

*****

I have no idea whether the foregoing historical details have informed the men and women "taking the knee" during the national anthem in recent years. 

Probably not.

But one thing is certain.  Symbols are powerful, and symbols are loaded with dreams, presumptions, agendas, and yes, hatreds.

The political classes in the USA like to talk about Americans’ rights and freedoms.

About the right to peaceful protest.

But all of the talk about “rights” hides some unsettling truths…

A protest is meant to shine light on wrongs and injustice.

Those who benefit and enrich themselves under the status quo mostly detest protestors. When protestors gain something, those with wealth and power tend to lose something.

So the right to protest is only “respected” as long as a protest remains ineffective.

Once a protest becomes EFFECTIVE, things take on a sinister complexion.

Once a protest becomes EFFECTIVE, it doesn’t matter if it’s peaceful or not.

Contrary to all the platitudes about American rights, US history can boast a catalogue of examples where the right to protest has been violently suppressed.

The Whiskey Rebellion. Miners’ unions. Voter registration drives. Civil Rights activism. Kent State. American Indian rights. Women’s suffrage. Pro-Palestine student demonstrations.

Hell, half of the USA fought a Civil War to smash and destroy protests against human slavery…

Colin Kaepernick was brought down because his silent, peaceful protest was EFFECTIVE. Instead of standing outside a police station holding a placard and shouting, Kaepernick subverted the bread and circuses spectacle of the NFL to reach a much wider audience.

How dare someone break the third wall between the money men and the audience they see as “theirs”.

How dare someone call into question the rituals of patriotism - rituals which serve only to protect those who deploy patriotism as a means to maintain sheep-like obeisance among the disempowered.

Why should Colin Kaepernick and others like him be expected to "respect the flag", or to "respect the anthem"? 

Why? 

When did this flag and this anthem really begin to represent ALL Americans?

1865?  1965? 

Yesterday? 

Ever?

*****

Does anyone even remember Colin Kaepernick? A man who lost his career for having a social conscience?

The current fascist-in-chief made sure to attend Super Bowl 2025 last year, before his approval ratings had cratered.

He gave 2026 a miss, offering only his usual poisonous social media commentary from a distance. Halftime show performer Bad Bunny was “one of the worst EVER”.

Of course he was. He is brown, and speaks Spanish.

At Super Bowl 2025, legions of Trump’s adoring fascist enablers dutifully booed any members of the "out group".

The NFL bowed before his administration's demand that the "End Racism" slogan should be "disappeared", in a precursor warm-up to Trump’s efforts to ruin World Cup 2026.

During the 2025 halftime show, Kendrick Lamar did not forget Kaepernick.

And Kendrick Lamar did not bow.

Using Black Americans to physically embody the flag was a statement extraordinaire - one of the most powerful rebuttals of "exclusive ownership" of the audience - and patriotism - you're ever likely to see.

Trump left early.

The American flag and national anthem are symbols often most beloved by those who do not respect Mr. Lamar, do not respect Mr. Kaepernick, do not respect the Black community, or the Black community's right to social justice, free speech and legitimate protest.

The biggest flag-wavers of all believe THEY are entitled to storm and vandalize the nation's capitol on the basis of fake grievances, knowing their "champion" is prepared to pardon their violence.

They howl their putrid, imbecilic hatred at images of "libs" on stadium screens.

Meanwhile, a silent minute or two on bended knee to highlight real social injustice causes spittle-flecked rage...

But hey.

Betsy Ross sewed a flag.

And Francis Scott Key was a patriot.

End of lesson.

Meanwhile, a decade after one chapter in his life was closed, an unassuming guy named Colin Kaepernick this month picked-up the bill for an independent autopsy on the body of a young Mississippi man named Nolan Wells, because in the USA, patriotism is often little more than a performance of obedience and privilege, and justice is almost always for people who can afford it.