Quote: Large Paws "Excellent post.'"
Indeed, and it is the majority view.
I posted this on my Fb yesterday , be interested to know what others think As District Attorney, he suppressed abolitionists and did not support an immediate end to slavery.[9][10] He was also a leader of the American Colonization Society which sent freed slaves to Africa.[11][12] He freed some of his slaves in the 1830s, paying one ex-slave as his farm foreman. He publicly criticized slavery and gave free legal representation to some slaves seeking freedom, but he also represented owners of runaway slaves.
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The third verse makes comments to those 'Colonial Marines' (black men fighting for the British in return for their freedom) and how the last ship they would sail would be to a watery grave.
Will Americans stop singing it when they, hypocritically, take a knee?
If they are so het up by oppression and inequality, will Cheerleaders be gone from NFL games, or is moral indignation reserved for the actions of white men against black men. Will rap music be banned (basically glorification of drugs, gangs, guns and violence), I very much doubt it.
Can you see the Aussies kneeling when Advance Australia fair is played ("we are young and free", hmmm, tell that to the Aboriginals that have inhabited Australia for 60,000 years and are still persecuted and prosecuted and were subjugated with alcohol and gambling)
People talk of banning "Swing low, sweet chariot", what next, ban "Land of Hope & Glory", "Rule Britannia", "Jerusalem", all are Nationalistic and Imperialistic. Don't even start on "God Save the Queen"
Basically, where does it stop?
Our history isn't always something we should be proud of, but nor should we selectively decide which bits to keep and which to discard because it is socially awkward to even speak of it...
Racism is awful, as is all oppression, but the situation is improving each decade, people have shown their feelings with protests, an incident of racial or oppressive nature triggers these kind of protests on a roughly 10 year cycle, and it always will, there will always be the oppressor and the oppressed, it is nature, and not just human nature.
Conflating racism, subjugation,opression, inequality and intolerance into one cause under a three word banner ,as is the trend, lessens the importance of each in their own right.