Volume 5, Issue 26: Inside the Bell Bones

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There was a girl in our friend group in college who, when we would all go to an Illini sporting event together, always sat down when they started playing the national anthem. She made a whole big thing out of it. As soon the public address announcer started saying, “those who are able, please stand and remove your caps,” she would begin to rustle demonstratively, make sure everyone around her was looking and then, with a big dramatic flair, take a seat. During the song, she would look up at the rest of us, even try to make eye contact, both to make sure we understood what she was doing and to pointedly note that if we had her moral courage, we’d be doing the same thing. No one really challenged her on this, I’m sure people would do that now, it would probably be a whole thing, someone would be live streaming her, she’d probably be live-streaming herself, but we that wasn’t really our thing in college. You just sort of tried to get from one day to the next. You simply shrugged and went back to the game.

I got my dander up more about it after I left college, when I thought about it more, when I could put it in more context. It was partly my inherent suspicion, even occasional contempt, for look-at-me self-promotion for no other purpose than one’s desperate need for attention; none of us ever knew exactly what her little pseudo-protest was about besides making sure that everyone saw it. But if I’m being honest, I think, the more I thought about it back then, I came around to actually being a little offended by it. My grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great grandparents fought for this country; my father served in the Air Force; I am from a family of veterans. But it wasn’t just a military thing: The national anthem is not a military song, after all. It’s a song meant to inspire national unity behind the common ideals that it, and the flag, represents. I did not back then, and I do not now, agree with everything my country does. I knew, and know, that my country, like every other one, is in many ways built on a foundation of blood and injustice and oppression. I’ve never had any illusions. But I always have always believed in the ideal of the United States, a place built to lean toward equality and justice and freedom, even if it, being populated by human beings after all, will never truly get there. Millions of people have strove to meet that ideal, have dedicated their lives to try to uphold that ideal, have fought and died for that ideal, and for someone to just decide that, nope, they’re all dicks, I’m sitting down struck me as disrespectful. More than that, it just felt lazy. You don’t think this country is what it should be? Yeah, I agree with you. Want to get up and try to do something about it? Or do you want to just sit there? Get your ass up and get some skin in the game.

That was 25 years ago. I have been to more than a thousand sporting events since then, and before every single one of them, they have played the national anthem. Every single time, wherever I’m at, whether I’m in the stands, or on the field, or in the press box, I have stood, and removed my cap, and shown attention. I do not consider this a political act—though, like just about everything else we do in the world, whether we consciously think of it as one or not, it sort of is—and for years, I didn’t much think about it at all. My world grew fuller than it was in college, when I had more time and inclination for such theoretical ideals, before adult life, before a career, before a family, before kids. Standing for the anthem was just something you did, unless your team was playing the Blue Jays or the Raptors, in case you had do it once more with a song you didn’t know the words to. This was a blessing and a privilege, I know, to put actual engagement with my country and the world around me in the background; not everyone gets such comfortable remove. But it was one I accepted.

But that has changed in the last decade, as our country has changed, as that song, and that flag, and all the symbolism that comes with both, has been turned by some into a weapon rather than an umbrella. It’s something you have to think about now. I do not like this change. But I also am not sure it’s a terrible thing that you have to think about it more now.

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Did you know that Donald Trump begins his rallies now with a recording of the national anthem sung by people serving prison time for storming the Capitol? This is actually true. I’m not sure that many people understand that’s happening. They don’t even all it “The Star-Spangled Banner.” They call it “Justice For All.” It features Trump saying the Pledge of Allegiance, recorded at Mar-a-lago, before a recording of prisoners singing the national anthem, taped on a prison phone.

(The AP reporter in that video, by the way, is David Klepper, a former Daily Illini colleague, and roommate, who went to many of those same sporting events with me in college.)

So the leading candidate to become the next President of the United States now begins his rallies with a song sung by people convicted of breaking into the Capitol and attempting to violently overturn an election. In case you didn’t know that was happening.

That feels like a change.

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One of the regularly forgotten aspects of Colin Kapernick’s initial protest was that it was a silent one. For the first two preseason games of the 2016 San Francisco 49ers season, Kaepernick simply stayed in the locker room while the national anthem was being played. He didn’t tell anyone about it. He didn’t live stream it. He didn’t put out a press release. He didn’t even care if anyone knew. It is possible no one would have known, had an NFL reporter named Steve Wyche not happened to notice, from way up in the press box, that Kapernick was not on the field. Wyche decided to ask Kaepernick about it. Kapernick did not equivocate. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told Wyche, in the locker room after the third preseason game that year. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder." ‘

It is remarkable to read Wyche’s story, nearly eight years later, and note how mature and reasonable people were about Kaepernick in the moment. The 49ers released a statement saying, “The national anthem is and always will be a special part of the pre-game ceremony. It is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem." Kaepernick’s coach at the time, Chip Kelly, who has quite a fall since then, said not coming out for the anthem was Kaepernick’s “right as a citizen” and that “it's not my right to tell him not to do something.” People would not talk about Kaepernick’s “rights as a citizen” for very much longer after that, but in the moment, they did.

When people remember Kaepernick’s protest now, the image of of him kneeling during the anthem comes to mind, but it is important to remember how the kneeling happened in the first place. Shortly after Kaepernick’s protest, Seahawks long snapper Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret, wrote an open letter to Kaepernick in the Military Times. It is kind of an incredible letter, particularly when you consider how people would react to Kaepernick in the coming months and years, how Kaepernick would ultimately be blackballed from the NFL. Boyer is not just respectful of Kaepernick, he is deeply empathetic to his cause.

I’m not judging you for standing up for what you believe in. It’s your inalienable right. What you are doing takes a lot of courage, and I’d be lying if I said I knew what it was like to walk around in your shoes. I’ve never had to deal with prejudice because of the color of my skin, and for me to say I can relate to what you’ve gone through is as ignorant as someone who’s never been in a combat zone telling me they understand what it’s like to go to war. Even though my initial reaction to your protest was one of anger, I’m trying to listen to what you’re saying and why you’re doing it. When I told my mom about this article, she cautioned me that "the last thing our country needed right now was more hate." As usual, she’s right. There are already plenty people fighting fire with fire, and it’s just not helping anyone or anything. So I’m just going to keep listening, with an open mind. I look forward to the day you're inspired to once again stand during our national anthem. I'll be standing right there next to you. Keep on trying … De Oppresso Liber.

Boyer’s letter got to Kaepernick, who reached out to him for a meeting. At that meeting, Boyer advised Kaepernick, as a way to show respect for the men like him who had fought for the country, not to ignore the anthem, not to stay in the locker room, but instead to kneel.

As Boyer would later put it in an interview:

I said to him, look, I think your point has definitely been made that everyone's listening. Like, let's make a plan of attack now. And, you know, let's work on action for it. But he said, you know, what I've committed to this, and - I'm not going to do it until I start to see these changes I want to see. And, you know, I respected that decision and opinion. And I thought kneeling - personally, so I don't speak for everybody, I don't speak for every veteran. I've been told that numerous times by many people. But I thought kneeling was more respectful, and I will say that being alongside his teammates was the biggest thing for me.

And, you know, people - in my opinions and in my experience, kneeling's never been in our history really seen as a disrespectful act. I mean, people kneel when they get knighted. You kneel to propose to your wife, and you take a knee to pray. And soldiers often take a knee in front of a fallen brother's grave to pay respects. So I thought, if anything, besides standing, that was the most respectful.

The two men would later be together on the sideline for the national anthem.

They remain friends today. Boyer, who runs the MVP: Merging Vets and Players organization, was the focus of an NFL Films documentary that spoke about the anthem, and service, eloquently. In it, Boyer notes: “I will continue to stand with pride with the anthem is played. That doesn’t mean I’m ‘against’ or ‘don’t support’ the reason others kneel. We can spend the rest of our lives debating in anger whether sitting, kneeling, standing on your head is offensive, or we can focus on fixing the why.”

I admire Boyer, and Kaepernick, and have always found their friendship moving. But if there’s one thing that has changed since their conversation back in 2016, it’s that the conversation about why has been shoved into the background. Now everything is about the anger, and the offense. The national anthem, for many, isn’t a place for reflection, or honor, or “respect.” It’s just another litmus test. It’s a way to preen—one way or another. And that is the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to be.

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We were out at the Little League park all week this week for my son’s All-Star baseball tournament. There’s a real camaraderie that develops among parents who head out to the park every hot summer night, wearing the same All-Star team T-shirts, watching how everybody’s kids hold up under pressure, how they stick together as friends, and as a team. Before every game, players say the Little League pledge—which features the line “I trust in God,” which was initially meant to be less overtly religious than it comes across as now—and turn toward the flag for the playing of the National Anthem. There is something undeniably stirring to watch them, to see those kids, in their uniforms, with their hats off, looking in the same direction, doing something together—a part of something bigger.

And I stand out there with them. When I stand for the national anthem now, it is more complicated than it used to be. I am thinking about my grandparents, and my father, and my relatives, and the men and women who fought and died for my ability to eat a hot dog and watch my son pitch. I am thinking about how I do feel blessed to be an American, and all the rights and freedoms and ideals that are available for me and the people I love and care about here that would not be available had we all been born in a different place, under different circumstances.

But I am also thinking about how much we’ve changed, how much ugliness that was once under the surface has now been exposed, how this very ritual can be weaponized and turned into something that divides us rather than unites us. I am thinking about how short we regularly fall from our ideals, how much I worry that we are losing touch with what makes this country special and worth fighting for, how many mistakes we have made, how many we have yet still to make. I am thinking about my place in this country, what I owe to it, to its citizens, particularly those who have not been as fortunate in their circumstances as I have. I am thinking about the sacrifices people have made for this country, and making sure that those sacrifices remain worth it. I am thinking about how I, and all of us, can make it better. I am thinking about how we can protect it. If we can.

And you know: This ritual should be complicated. I want to be thinking about all of these things when we stand. We should be thinking about it even if we don’t. We all should be. To love something is to take it seriously: To care for it, to tend to it, to make sure it lives up to what it is supposed to be. I believe in the national anthem, and the flag, and this country. To believe it is to invest in it, to challenge it, to aid it, to protect it. That’s how I feel when I stand for the national anthem now. It is two minutes or so in which I think about this country, its leaders, its possibilities, its failings, its history, its future. It is good to take those two minutes and not just blindly stare, or provocatively sit, or peacock and preen. It is a deeply pivotal time, for our country, and all of us. To take that time to reflect is vital. This July 4, with everything swirling this election year, feels different—both more alive and vivid, and more perilous. I am proud of his country, I am ashamed of this country, I celebrate this country, I fear for this country, I love this country. I’d like to keep it.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. Why the USMNT Lost Its Juice, New York. Another reason this stuff has been on my mind.

2. This Week’s Five Fascinations, MLB.com. I got to write an ode to new San Francisco Giants pitcher Hayden Birdsong, the second MLB player born in Mattoon, Illinois, of the last 100 years.

3. Emma Stone Movies, Ranked, Vulture. Updated with Kinds of Kindness.

4. Your Biggest Second-Half Questions, MLB.com. We are halfway through the baseball season, if you can believe that.

5. John Wick-Inspired Movies, Ranked, Vulture. Updated with Trigger Warning.

6. This Week’s Power Rankings, MLB.com. The Cardinals remain higher than they’ve been in two years, I like it.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, we talked about “The Bikeriders,” “Fancy Dance” and “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.”

Seeing Red, Bernie and I do not think the Cardinals are good, but they are not bad either.

Morning Lineup, I did Monday and Thursday this week.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“What if the NFL Expanded to 100 Teams?” Bill Barnwell, ESPN. I loved this fanciful Barnwell idea of imagining, if the NFL had 100 teams, where you’d put them all. I would go to so many games in Montana.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers!

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Hang On To Yourself,” David Bowie. I’ve really been enjoying this new David Bowie boxset.

Am I the only person who only finally got into Bowie in my 40s? I might be!

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

Also, now there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.

We lost our tournament this week, but I sure did love watching my kid pitch anyway. Actually, that’s not true. I was miserable watching my son pitch—I’m a wreck. But he did great. Of course he did.

Be safe out there, everyone. I think we’re gonna make it through.

Best,
Will