Francis Scott Key observes the bombardment and the U.S. flag over Fort McHenry.

Francis Scott Central observes the battery and the U.Southward. flag over Fort McHenry.

Epitome: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

From day one, the United States has always struggled to walk its talk. In 1776, as the U.S. alleged itself independent from Dandy Britain, the framers of said declaration noted that "all men are created equal." But Thomas Jefferson, the lead author of the Declaration of Independence, owned men. In his "Notes on the State of Virginia," he compared Africans to apes. He had sexual practice with an enslaved woman and kept her children in bondage.

This is not just me looking dorsum 242 years and imposing my nowadays-twenty-four hours worldview onto a different era — the hypocrisy was seen and known in real-time.

"How is information technology that nosotros hear the loudest yelps for freedom among the drivers of Negroes?'' English writer Samuel Johnson wrote in 1775. A year later, English abolitionist Thomas Day wrote, "If at that place be an object truly ridiculous in nature it is an American patriot signing resolutions of independency with the one hand and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves."

Nosotros are expected to approximate this nation'due south early leaders on their words and not their deeds.

In other words, nosotros are expected to estimate this nation's early leaders on their words and non their deeds. When it comes to the by, nosotros're supposed to basically practise the reverse of what Martin Luther Rex Jr. said we should practice in his "I Take a Dream" oral communication: actually overlook the content of someone's character.

Here'southward the thing, though: It appears that that's easier for some people to do than others. I'm stuck. I am just incapable of respecting someone who bought, sold, traded, bred, and forced man beings into a fell life of slavery. Information technology'southward a disqualifier for me. And my gauge is that, the less your ancestors were afflicted by such a practice, the less of a disqualifier it is for you. Only some of us value black lives so much that we find information technology pretty difficult to be wooed past someone's otherwise bright words when they owned black people. Kind of like how it's hard to curiosity over the poetry of Nazis or the photographic skills of 9/11 hijackers. At some point your graphic symbol, or lack thereof, gets in the way of your contributions.

Francis Scott Key, the author of what is now known every bit our national anthem, absolutely needs to be on the listing of folks drummed out of polite company for their transgressions. He was a genuinely horrible human. He was an open, flagrant bigot. He was not a silent bigot; he put his discrimination into words and deportment.

Key said that African-Americans were "a distinct and inferior race of people." Of grade he thought that: He came from a long line of slaveowners. His family unit got wealthy off buying, selling, trading, breeding, and working human beings to death. He connected the practice himself and owned homo beings for most of his life. Not only that, only as the district chaser of Washington, D.C., Central fought against the rights and human dignity of black people every take chances he got. In case after example, he fought against the rights of abolitionists and sought whatsoever means available to silence them.

All the way back in 1833, Fundamental was defending heinous incidents of constabulary brutality confronting African-Americans. The man fought to protect slavery until the solar day he died. He was no timid casher — Primal fought tooth and nail to protect it.

I have a problem with Francis Scott Cardinal. I don't care how great his poetry may or may non accept been — I run into him every bit evil.

All of that results in me having a problem with Francis Scott Key. I don't care how great his poetry may or may not take been — I run into him as evil. I come across slavery every bit an evil establishment. Participating in it, for Cardinal, was not a 1-fourth dimension choice, merely a gross daily decision to do good from and defend at all costs.

When he wrote a poem based on his eyewitness account of the State of war of 1812, it makes perfect sense that his absolute loathing of free black people found itself into "The Star-Spangled Imprint." At that place, Central gleefully wrote about the murder of enslaved Africans that had been enlisted in the fighting. Their deaths were a highlight for him. The verse form says:

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 country of the free and the home of the brave.

This poem bothers me. Again, this is not me viewing the 19th century through a 21st century lens. It bothered abolitionists of the day. They, too, were irked by how hands the deaths of enslaved Africans could be celebrated in the same stanza in which this land was hailed as "the land of the gratuitous." Abolitionists even created other songs to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner" that spoke of the true pain and costs of slavery and how desperately freedom was desired.

There'southward a reason why this history is and then important. Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick started his demonstration during the national canticle to protest the repetitive cycle of systemic injustice and police force brutality in this nation. It did not feel right to him to stand to a song full of empty promises.

Kaepernick is not alone in the annals of sports. Jackie Robinson, in the last years of his life, in 1972, reflected back on injustice in this nation and said, "I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag." And he was a veteran who gave years of his life in the armed services. Information technology all ringed and so hollow to him.

And it does to me likewise. I am a man. I have a brain. I have a heart and soul. My fight in this country is against injustice. The same is truthful of Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid and so many other NFL players who've taken a genu. But something weird has happened where it's now seemingly politically incorrect to say that anybody is protesting the canticle.

So let me say it: I am protesting the anthem.

I am protesting its deeply bigoted writer — who owned man beings for convenience and profit.

And I am protesting injustice in this nation on behalf of so many families that continue to experience systematic racism, police force brutality, and inequality — all while others expect us to get upwardly and sing with a heart full of happiness.

I'll have a pass.