When Celebration Becomes Segregation By Soundtrack
Super Bowl Sunday is supposed to be the closest thing this fractured country has to a shared civic ritual. One flag. One anthem. One brief moment where we all stand under the same roof and remember we’re on the same team. So when the league once again rolled out Lift Every Voice and Sing—marketed as the so-called “black national anthem”—before the actual national anthem, it wasn’t a celebration. It was a deliberate act of symbolic division dressed up as cultural sensitivity.
This isn’t about talent. Coco Jones is undeniably gifted. Her voice is powerful, polished, and emotionally resonant. The staging was elegant. The applause was real. None of that is in dispute. What is in dispute is the growing insistence that Americans must now choose between competing anthems based on race, as if the country itself is no longer sufficient.
One Nation, Or A Playlist Of Tribes?
A national anthem exists for a reason. It is not meant to represent every personal history, grievance, or cultural lineage. It represents the nation as a whole—flawed, imperfect, but shared. Introducing parallel anthems before the biggest civic spectacle in American sports sends a clear message: we are no longer one people with one national story, but a collection of identity blocs demanding separate ceremonial recognition.
That isn’t inclusion. It’s fragmentation.
When you preface The Star-Spangled Banner with another anthem explicitly framed around race, you aren’t expanding unity—you’re qualifying it. You’re saying the national anthem alone is insufficient, incomplete, or unworthy unless supplemented by identity-based symbols. That’s not progress. That’s a quiet admission of national failure.
Symbolism Matters, Especially On The Biggest Stage
Defenders will argue that Lift Every Voice and Sing is “historical,” “uplifting,” or “long overdue.” But context matters. This wasn’t a classroom, a museum, or a cultural celebration. This was the Super Bowl—America’s most-watched secular ceremony. Symbols placed here are not neutral. They are declarations.
And the declaration was clear: national unity now comes with an asterisk.
The NFL didn’t accidentally stumble into this. It has carefully curated a pregame lineup of multiple “anthems,” as if the country itself must now be introduced in chapters. First, this group. Then, that group. Then, eventually, the nation. That ordering tells a story—and it’s not a unifying one.
Applause Doesn’t Equal Consensus
Social media praise doesn’t settle the issue. For every glowing comment celebrating the performance, there are millions of Americans quietly wondering when shared citizenship became insufficient. Many don’t boo. They don’t boycott. They just disengage. And that quiet withdrawal is far more dangerous than open protest.
You don’t heal division by institutionalizing it. You don’t bring people together by telling them they need separate songs before they can stand under the same flag. And you don’t strengthen a nation by implying that its core symbols are negotiable based on audience demographics.
This Is Cultural Politics, Not Cultural Respect
Let’s be honest: this isn’t about honoring Black Americans. Black Americans are Americans. Their history, sacrifice, and contributions are already embedded in the national anthem because they are embedded in the nation itself. Creating a parallel anthem suggests otherwise. It suggests separateness where there should be shared ownership.
That framing may play well in boardrooms and PR statements, but on the ground, it deepens the sense that America is being carved into symbolic territories—each with its own rituals, its own grievances, and its own soundtrack.
Bottom Line
A nation that needs multiple anthems at its most unifying event is a nation being taught to see itself as divided. Talent and beauty cannot mask the underlying message: this was an act of disunity, not respect. The national anthem is meant to be the one place where identity politics stop at the door. Replacing or supplementing it with race-based alternatives doesn’t heal wounds—it reopens them and calls it harmony.
We are so screwed when we engage in identity politics or sit idly by when others try to divide America by class, sex, race, and other characteristics.
— Steve
