‘Our first controversy’: Surprise Super Bowl anthem act leaves fans with big question
US singer Reba McEntire sings the National Anthem ahead of Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, February 11, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)Source: AFP
Country superstar Reba McEntire delivered a classic – and, critically to many fans, lengthy – rendition of the American national anthem ahead of Super Bowl LVIII.
With the over-under set at a shockingly low 90 seconds, McEntire got through The Star Spangled Banner pretty quickly yet extended the dramatic ending of the song to hit the over at around 95 to 96 seconds.
Controversially she delivered a second ‘brave’ as the final word.
Outrage as NFL announces ‘black national anthem’ Lift Every Voice and Sing will be performed at Super Bowl for 4th year in a row
The NFL is coming under fire after confirming the black national anthem, ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ will be performed at the 2024 Super Bowl.
Named the ‘Negro National Anthem’ by the NAACP in 1919, the song references slavery and the hope for liberation. It was later adopted as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights movement, according to the NAACP.
The song was first played before NFL games in 2021, and has also been performed at the last two Super Bowls.
But the song, which will be performed this year by singer Andra Day, has been criticized by some for dividing audiences instead of unifying the country.
‘Bro, we’re American. Why tf do we need Lift Every Voice and Sing?’ asked one irked NFL fan in response to the NFL’s announcement.
Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk also blasted the decision online.
‘The NFL has announced that the so-called ‘Black National Anthem’ will be performed at the Super Bowl. Of course, in reality, the black national anthem is performed at every Super Bowl, because The Star-Spangled Banner is the anthem of ALL Americans. The effort to create a ‘black national anthem,’ and a ‘black Independence Day’ in Juneteenth, is part of a wider project to divide Americans up by race,’ Kirk wrote on X.
‘The NFL is evidently continuing to perpetuate antiwhiteism and division during this year’s Super Bowl. If that’s what you support then enjoy watching. I certainly won’t,’ tweeted Paul A. Szypula.
‘Fans have only themselves to blame. An organized boycott will stop this nonsense within a few short weeks. Instead of moaning about it, use your reach to organize a boycott and explain to the NFL what it has to do to get its audience back,’ stated Biff Gruffly.
‘And once again, one of the many reasons, I no longer watch the NFL, or am even interested. I am not the audience they are pandering to. I believe in unity and the NFL is not the for the same thing,’ added Benjamin Hinson.
‘I’m probably done with the NFL. We have a National Anthem that represents us as the great American melting pot. To take that and now create an anthem for one single racial group is a slap in the face of every other ethnicity and to our country,’ stated another.
Some have argued how singing the anthem is a positive gesture that acknowledges the suffering of black Americans – and a step towards healing the county’s racial division.
‘I’ve never been moved at a performance of the Star Spangled Banner. I am always moved by Lift Every Voice and Sing. White people threatened by the “Black National Anthem” after 100 years and plenty of institutional performances in that time need to sit down. It’ll be okay,’ tweeted Erinn O’Dear.
Last year, the song was performed at the Super Bowl by Sheryl Lee Ralph, while Mary Mary sung it in 2022.
The song was originally a poem written by James Weldon Johnson, a former NAACP leader.
Its lyrics describe the struggles and aspirations of black Americans at the turn of the 20th century.
The NFL began playing the song before NFL games in the 2020 season following the protests that came in the wake of the killings at the hands of the police of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Last year there were also mixed reactions to the singing of the song at the most-watched sporting event of the year.
Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert said on X: ‘America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM.’
Her critics attacked her, however, suggesting that her tweet sowed more division than the inclusion of the anthem. Luke Zaleski, Legal Affairs Editor for Condé Nast accused the politician of hypocrisy.
‘The gaslighting is the fact that she’s using the concept of unity to divide. She’s doing what she’s accusing the NFL of. It’s a fake grievance contrived to irk and produce the effect of further fracturing society,’ he wrote.
Social media personality Brian Krassentein attacked those who objected to the singing of the anthem. ‘If you have a problem with the Black National Anthem then you are one of the reasons it’s being sung,’ he wrote.
Lavern Spicer, who ran as a Republican candidate for election to the House in Florida in 2022, expressed the idea that there should only be one national anthem for all Americans.
‘The Black National Anthem is the Star Spangled Banner. The White National Anthem is the Star Spangled Banner. The Mixed National Anthem is the Star Spangled Banner,’ she wrote.
Darrell B. Harrison, a Bible teacher who is black, said the NFL was making a mistake by allowing the anthem to be sung, also suggesting that it made America a nation of two anthems’.
Among the other pregame entertainers for this year’s big game on February 11 are Reba McEntire and Post Malone.
McEntire will perform the American national anthem, the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ while Malone will sing ‘America the Beautiful.’
Usher was previously announced as the main halftime act at Allegiant Stadium.
‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ lyrics:
Lift every voice and sing,
‘Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed.
We have come, over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet, stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land
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