Is the Star Spangled Banner racist?

Author: SkepticalOne

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#1
SkepticalOne
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'How can the Star Spangled Banner be racist?', you might wonder. It is about patriotic pride that the American flag stood after battle, right?! Most of us are blissfully unaware the poem from which the Star Spangled Banner (SSB) comes from has four verses - it is the third verse where controversy arises:

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 washed out their foul footsteps' 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.

There can be little argument Francis Scott Key (FSK), the author of the poem which later became the national anthem, was racist. He was a slave owner and anti-abolitionist. He believed Africans in America were "a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.” He petitioned for free blacks to return to Africa. A few weeks before writing the poem he likely would have seen Colonial Marines (a unit of freed slaves) fighting with the British in the demoralizing loss at Bladensburg. This defeat allowed the occupation of Washington and the burning of the Capitol.

In this context, it can hardly be argued FSK, when referring to 'freeman' or 'the free', would have included Black people of any status.  On that alone, the argument for a racist SSB can be made. Beyond this, the third verse specifically mentions 'hirelings and slaves' as unable to hide from fearful fleeing or death. "Hirelings" might be considered a bit ambiguous referring to mercenaries, working men, etc., but "slaves" is without ambiguity along with the threat of retribution to them. For these reasons, I contend our national anthem should be retired for something more representative of all Americans.

I want to hear your thoughts - persuade me otherwise.
#2
FLRW
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@SkepticalOne
Yes,  Key not only profited from slaves, he harbored racist conceptions of American citizenship and human potential. Africans in America, he said, were: “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”
#3
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@SkepticalOne
Songs and lyrics change meaning just like Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Nigger is a common popular word in pop culture lyrics today as another example.
#4
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@SkepticalOne
Too bad you've entirely missed the point that the although the British, by Parliament, banned slavery in G.B. in about 1830, the British military in America had both slaves and indentured servants [people who work off their passage to America by work at no wages]. You will also note a shift in focus in both the second and third verses of the SSB from American patriots to the British; it is the British "hireling [indentured servant] and slave" referenced in verse 3, not American. I do not argue Key's potential for being a racist, given his own words otherwise, but let's understand his poem and its shifting subjects. Poetry is not as mystic as you may think. just read the words and know the history.  

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@SkepticalOne
For these reasons, I contend our national anthem should be retired for something more representative of all Americans.
  • You say "reasons" plural for retiring the Star-Spangled Banner (I assume from its job as our National Anthem) but I only detect one reason: that the SSB is racist.  
  • I'm not a big fan of throwing out art just because that art no longer reflects our values.  Art is not always meant to please or satisfy- Art can be offensive.  Art is also an essential part of documenting our heritage.  Moby Dick and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn reflect and  record racist times and values but I think we must preserve that art as part of how we remember our history and note our progress and resolve to do better.  I don't think we toss out old statues just because we are offended by the values held by the subjects depicted.  I don't think we should change the name of Mt Evans just because that Governor was a Klansman.  That kind of white-washing makes the sins of our past easier to deny in future and pretends that we did not inherit what sins we inherited.  I believe in preserving the past and the art of the past as authentically as we can, as well as carrying it forward with new artistic responses to old values.
  • I believe that the racist content is the more representative art.  You can't understand America at all without understanding American racism and how it defined us and defines us still.
    • America the Beautiful is certainly less racist but it is certainly also less representative.  Are we really all about Pilgrims and alabaster cities (actually a little racist if you think about it)?
    • America the Beautiful loves the American geography but unlike any nation founded before us we are not defined by our geography, we our defined by our common project- that govt. of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth.  I prefer an anthem that reflects our people and our history more than our geography.
      • Which is more authentically American:  amber waves of grain or Kaepernick taking a knee?  Let's live in the sins of our past so that we remember that we have done better since and resolve to continue to do so.
  • Also, almost nobody ever sings that third stanza.

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#6
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@fauxlaw
In your view, FSK was threatening indentured servants and slaves of GB? I find that explanation lacking - we would expect FSK to address GB in general rather than just their hirelings and slaves.
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@oromagi
I'm not a big fan of throwing out art just because that art no longer reflects our values.
The 'art' will not cease to exist - we will simply stop pretending that it represents us* (all Americans) or that it ever has. Plus, the SSB hasn't always been our Anthem- it only attained that status in 1931. I doubt anyone was suggesting the artistic value of the previous Anthem was suddenly null and void.

Artistic value is a moot point compared to symbolic accuracy of ...a symbol. Fortunately we don't have to choose: we can have a symbol with high artistic value. Let's keep things in perspective rather than fondling modern partisan touchstones - changing the anthem in 2021 isn't erasing history any more than changing the anthem in ~1930 was.

I don't find the rest of your post to be necessarily relevant to the OP. It is not a choice between America the Beautiful or the SSB.
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@fauxlaw
In your view, FSK was threatening indentured servants and slaves of GB? I find that explanation lacking - we would expect FSK to address GB in general rather than just their hirelings and slaves.
I think fauxlaw is right- the "hirelings and slaves" are clearly a description of that band that swore that the havoc of war would leave Americans without a home and country. 

The context is essential here.   A band of British marines had been raiding up the Chesapeake all summer, freeing slaves was a standard part of the raiding although the extent to which those slaves joined in with the British is less clear.  Slaves were generally untrained and more mouths to feed for fast moving raiding parties but experienced scouts and hunters would be very valuable.  The British had freed a large number of slaves during the Revolutionary War with many promises of protection but ultimately only saved a couple thousand and left most of those in Canada and the Caribbean.  Hard to know how much Maryland slaves trusted these invaders.

We should also note that Maryland always had more free Blacks than any other state.  In 1810, about 10% of Blacks in Maryland were free (By 1860, nearly half of all Blacks were free).  Depending on the outlook of local militias, some American forces might have had a substantial black contingent.  Washington and Baltimore were the two cities with the largest free Black populations in the world outside of Africa and perhaps Haiti at the time and the defense of those city's ramparts would have included substantial Black populations.

All that said, I read Key's characterization as more a classist insult than a description of the enemy's actual duty.  He is contrasting America's volunteer militiamen fighting for their homes to the marines of the British army fighting for money or because they have no choice.  While there is no denying that British marines of 1812 were the finest, toughest army of the age (or most other ages), Key's accusation mainly sticks:  the redcoats were a bunch of foreign mercenaries, emancipated prisoners, and indentured servants.  Key clearly thought of the British army as rabble and these lyrics are meant as disrespect against that rabble.
#9
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@SkepticalOne
I don't find the rest of your post to be necessarily relevant to the OP.
That's a shame because you failed to address the argument that racist lyrics are more representative of America then and now then whitewashed lyrics.
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#10
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@oromagi
That's a shame because you failed to address the argument that racist lyrics are more representative of America then and now then whitewashed lyrics.
I see the SSB as the whitewashed version of representation as explained in the OP and my reply to you.
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#11
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@oromagi
The context is essential here. 
Agreed, but it seems you are discounting the Colonial Marines. 
#12
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@SkepticalOne
Were you aware that, during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, Key was on a British troop ship trying to negotiate the release of an American prisoner. He was a lawyer, after all, and detained when bombardment began. I trust he was relatively vague about his writing under the circumstances, which began on board during the bombardment
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@SkepticalOne
Judging history by todays standards is arrogant.

And overlooks what was/is the inevitability of human evolution and  human social evolution, relative to the acquisition of knowledge and associated capability.

The modern arguments are just the manifestation of ongoing mutual racism, relative to perceivable differences.


Socially acceptable slavery is what kept/keeps society ticking.

What was once acceptable, may not be now.

But social hierarchy always dictates a degree of subservience. 
#14
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Personally, I think it's no wonder, that some on the Right, claim the Left hates America.
Though whether that's an unfair claim, or not. . .

Just saw something in the news recently about changing the flag, as well.
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@fauxlaw
Were you aware that, during the bombardment of Fort McHenry, Key was on a British troop ship trying to negotiate the release of an American prisoner. He was a lawyer, after all, and detained when bombardment began. I trust he was relatively vague about his writing under the circumstances, which began on board during the bombardment

Yes, I am aware. I don't see what point you're trying to make though. 
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@Lemming
The Right has a tendency to white supremacy and sedition....rocks and glass houses comes to mind.
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@zedvictor4
Judging history by todays standards is arrogant.
The anthem is current. It is appropriate to judge it by today's standards. 
#18
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@Lemming
This reeks of another pointless thread preaching that America was built on an institution instead of a grand ideal.

A philosophy that should have died out with the old Soviet Union.
#19
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@SkepticalOne
No, you don't, even though I made it in my #12. Must I hit you overt the head with it? It's subtle, like key was.
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#20
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@fauxlaw
No, you don't, even though I made it in my #12. Must I hit you overt the head with it? It's subtle, like key was.
My response was to post #12. It shouldn't require two replies to clarify.
#21
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@SkepticalOne
An old song is an old song.


So are we therefore going to judge every recorded narrative?


And what's the point of judging dead people?....Other than to achieve smug satisfaction.


And did you only read one line of my previous post?
#22
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@zedvictor4
We should probably replace the National Anthem with this.


Then we can come back and complain endlessly how America is an anarchist nation with an anarchist Anthem, if it is still around.
#23
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@SkepticalOne
What is the actual reason you want the Star Spangled Banner to be retired? 



#24
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Let’s change the national anthem to “America fuck yeah” to own the line.