Serpico, NYC Cops Join Rally for Kaepernick
A funny thing happened on the way to the Star Spangled Banner becoming the national anthem.
It was 1918, in the midst of World War I and during the Red Sox-Cubs game at Comiskey Park, of all places.
The song -- well known but not a national anthem yet -- had been re-arranged into a more workable tune by the legendary John Phillip Sousa, and the military band on hand wanted to publicize it.
So they selected it for the already-traditional seventh-inning stretch. The rest is history.
Leaving aside the cynicism that the practice spread immediately thereafter because owners felt it drew more fans to the park, playing the anthem, the practice of playing it before every game was a gradual process.
Ironically, the last holdout was the Cubs. Owner PK Wrigley thought playing it every day cheapened its meaning. It wasn't until the 1960s that he relented.
Now, baseball has a case of redundancy on its hands.
After the jets hit the towers, a groundswell grew to include the non-violent God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch, in essence filling the original role of what's now the national anthem.
Some would call this overkill.
That usually doesn't end well with the protesters. Good luck with speaking against an icon that often loses the depth of its meaning as time goes on and repetitions become rote recitations.
The orginal Star Trek episode entitled Omega Glory addressed this back in the 1960s, when Captain Kirk & Co found themselves on a planet where the Yangs and Kohms were still fighting after a post-nuclear war:
Kirk was on a roll:
Now, let's return to the American national anthem:
- Like any international conflict, the War of 1812 had complex origins.
- Among other actions, the British offered slaves in the USA their freedom if they'd fight against America, and many did.
- Writer Francis Scott Key was a Southerner and slave owner.
- As an American, he naturally celebrated the British failure to capture Baltimore.
His resultant poem was meant to capture the elation of the moment, all the way through the third verse, which doesn't read so well these days:
If only the world -- the USA and elsewhere -- would make the same simple observation Lou Reed did in Sweet Jane:
Those were different times.
So Colin Kaepernick is out of a job as it pertains to the NFL. Any job.
Some of this is due to his actions on the field. Some if it is due to his actions off the field. How much of which is clearly in the eye of the beholder.
So, what do we get?
People on the outside becoming suspicious that people on the inside aren't giving Kaepernick a fair shake.
Ever see the movie based on Frank Serpico, the New York cop who did his bit to take down police corruption?
Dude apparently still knows dirt when he sees it, and so he showed up at a pro-Kaepernick rally in New York with a contingent of active police officers.
Serpico admittedly isn't a football fan, but that's not his point. He took a bullet to the face while weeding out weasels. To this day, he's got cred.
He's smelled many a rat before, and he smells one now.
Kaepernick said last March he's made his point and will stand for the national anthem. Apparently, that's still not enough for a shot in any NFL training camp.
Who knows if The Shield stands for anything besides money? If they can make a profit from breast cancer awareness, that sorta speaks for itself.
Thus, as much as they can control own their situation, players are now taking action with symbolism of their own, in support of Kaepernick and -- to understate it -- what's now become a national conversation.
Seattle Seahawks DL Michael Bennett said it'd take white players to start making a difference, and he's probably right.
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It's spreading. Derek Carr -- Jersey No 4 -- made his feelings known:
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Raiders fans could give a damn about the NFL, and they've been in favor of individual expression since forever.
Thus, Marshawn Lynch is doing just fine on his own.
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Protests have been a means of effecting change since humanity began, ranging from tipping over money-changers' tables to continuous resistance. Kaepernick's actions have been non-violent and clearly effective. Ironically, they will likely cost him his career.
The past isn't gonna change. The people who lived in it were far from perfect, and their various frames of reference then were far from what ours is -- or should be -- now.
No one should punish those who learn from history and do their part to avoid repeating it.