source: YouTube
Francis Scott Key. Most will recognize that name, but if your familiarity with American history is as fragmented and incomplete as mine, the recognition will be vague. Francis Scott Key came up in my online investigation on domestic terrorism and mass shootings in America, which is how I learned that he is the one who created America's National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." I'll also share its interesting origin-story here, as I'm sure many of you won't be familiar with it. In September 1814, the British had attacked Washington and burned down the White House in the "War of 1812." The British had also taken prisoners in that war. Francis Scott Key, a 35-year old lawyer at the time, went on a ship flying a truce flag to negotiate a prisoner exchange with the Royal Navy.
His mission was successful, but while on the ship Key overheard plans for a surprise attack on Baltimore, so he wasn't allowed to leave until the attack was over and done with. That's how Francis Scott Key got to witness the bombardment of Fort McHenry while aboard a British ship. Although he couldn't from his vantage point determine who won or lost, at dawn he still saw the American flag waving, with 15 stars and 15 stripes and known as the Star-Spangled Banner at the time, over the fort; this was what inspired him to write the poem, originally titled "Defense of Fort M'Henry," that was later set to the tune of an existing song and became the National Anthem.
It wasn't made America's National Anthem for more than a century after its creation though; "The Star-Spangled Banner" was recognized for official use by the United States Navy in 1889, and by U.S. president Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and was made the national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931, which was signed by President Herbert Hoover. As you can see, this anthem isn't exactly rooted to the nation's birth, it isn't an ancient tradition, which makes all the ruckus surrounding professional football players and other sports persons all the more ridiculous. But why do you think it took so long for "The Star-Spangled Banner" to become the official anthem of the home of the brave, the land of the free?
The answer is as unsurprising as it is pertinent to the current growing extremism among conservative and right-wing movements in America; the poem has a strong reference to racism. First it's important to know that one of the disputes between the young Republic and the Brits in the War of 1812 was about slaves. You see, the British were on the lookout for allies and saw in the enslaved African Americans an easy group to convert to their side; they promised that escaped slaves who reached the British army would be set free. This promise incited a lot of fear among white Americans of a large-scale revolt. The British even promised land to men who escaped their bonds of slavery and joined the British Corps of Colonial Marines to fight against their former masters.
It's important to have this context because the National Anthem we all know has more than just one verse; the controversial part has simply been cut out. The third verse ends with these words:
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.
source: National Museum of American History
These lyrics are clearly meant to scorn and threaten the African Americans who took the British up on their offer, and show how deeply rooted racism still was at the time. There are scholars who disagree with this interpretation. An expert on the anthem, Mark Clague, a musicologist at the University of Michigan, said in a 2016 New York Times article about the Colin Kaepernick debate that the lyrics reference the use and manipulation of Black Americans to fight for the British, with the promise of freedom. I doubt that it was manipulation because the British ultimately kept their word. Make of that what you will though.
I thought it relevant to dig up this whole Star-Spangled origin story because America's number one threat of domestic terrorism is from Star-Spangled nationalists of the most extreme kind. Anyone can see this when following the acts of American domestic terrorism in the news, and it's corroborated by the agencies that try to prevent and manage these violent acts. Published in May 2021, the FBI and DHS "Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism" clearly shows how white nationalists are the prime offenders:
In 2018, the FBI and DHS assessed DVEs posed a persistent and evolving threat of violence, with RMVEs advocating for the superiority of the white race and AGAAVEs, specifically SCVEs, engaging in lethal attacks. [...] In 2019, the FBI and DHS assessed RMVEs, primarily those advocating for the superiority of the white race, likely would continue to be the most lethal DVE threat to the Homeland. Our agencies had high confidence in this assessment based on the demonstrated capability of RMVEs in 2019 to select weapons and targets to conduct attacks, and the effectiveness of online RMVE messaging calling for increased violence.
source: FBI
In the above quote "RMVE" stands for "Radically Motivated Violent Extremists," and the white nationalist portion of them features heavily in each of the reported years of 2017 through 2019. We could also look at the Gun Violence Archive which reports all mass shootings, which is an almost daily occurrence nowadays in America, to see how much violence comes from these Star-Spangled extremists, be they white nationalists, neo-Nazi's, Christian Nationalists or just plain old Trumpists. To be fair, it has to be said that almost all the perpetrates have a previous troublesome history. But that also shows us how the far-right public figures and opinion-makers use the weak and disgruntled parts of their support-base to manipulate them into doing their dirty work for them.
This message will almost always land on deaf ears though; once entangled in this downward spiral of far-right racist, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-feminist, anti-abortion, white supremacist, antisemitic and outright incredible conspiracy theories, these extremists rather believe someone like Alex Jones who tells them that mass shootings are staged, false-flags to bend public opinion in support of "taking away our freedoms and guns." It's a sad, frightening and completely understandable history that's brought us from the origins of America's National Anthem to the present American hell of almost daily violent attacks inspired by and coming from the far-right extremists.
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