10/16/2017:
Shawn Medow has the report in the Emerald here:
“Taking the knee before the game means just to raise awareness for the social injustices and inequalities that are happening in our nation,” defender Jazmin Jackmon said after the Ducks’ 1-0 loss to Washington on Oct. 8. “That’s what my teammates and I knelt for, and we’re really hoping to raise awareness for that and to force people to really have those conversations because I think as a nation, if we learn how to have those tough conversations that’s where we’ll grow, as well as our team.”
It’s impressive how well our students understand and can express this, especially in comparison to people like Coach Dana Altman:
Three years ago two of Dana Altman’s Duck basketball players tried a Black Lives Matter protest during his national anthem. Altman chewed out his players and wouldn’t let them talk to the press afterwards. They never tried *that* again.
At UO a Duck coach can suspend a player for just about anything, by making up a “team rule” against it. The players have no freedom:
10/5/2017: Marching Band Director Eric Wiltshire orders his students not to take a knee
while in uniform or on the field. That’s the rumor from down at the faculty club tonight.
O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
‘Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
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.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I’m pretty sure you owe me a royalty check, Frank.
https://amhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/the-melody.aspx
“No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,”
Our national anthem contains a line about murdering slaves.
Yeah, I’ve always preferred “John Brown’s Body:”
John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.
John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,
And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;
Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,
His soul is marching on.
He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,
And frightened “Old Virginny” till she trembled thru and thru;
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul is marching on.
John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,
Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,
And soon thruout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,
For his soul is marching on.
The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.
And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,
For his soul is marching on.
Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,
The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,
For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,
And his soul is marching on.
Readers may better know the later song that borrowed the melody from this, “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Surprised the entire team hasn’t been suspended or disbanded. Based on results on the pitch, that would have occurred years ago.
Thanks for your comment, but this is not really a sports blog.
Are you sure? I read a lot about sports on here….
Sports is the locale, not the context.
Does anybody actually realize that kneeling is a higher form of reverence than standing? Shouldn’t every “real” American kneel?