Former ESPN host Sage Steele said that she doesn’t like the idea of a “black national anthem,” stating that she believes it is a further separation down racial lines in a time when it is surely not needed.
Steele remarked on how she believes it promotes segregation on an episode of her podcast with musician Reggie Watts.
“I don’t like this whole ‘black national anthem’ thing,” Steele began. She then laughed when Watts revealed that he had never heard of the song.
“It’s newer from the last couple of years and it’s at the Super Bowl,” Steele explained.
The song, titled “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was performed by singer Andra Day before Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024.
Steele said she believes the whole idea of the United States was people from all walks of life uniting under a common set of ideas.
“Dude, we’re one big melting pot,” she continued. “This is good. Why are we now choosing to separate again when we’ve been in a tough time here the past several years, to say, ‘This is only our anthem, but y’all better stand up. Get your ass up.'”
“I think we’re all Americans and it’s our anthem, and all the immigrants from across the world that have come here stand up for our anthem. They’re all Americans,” Steele added.
‘[BLM] wasn’t helpful to me. What’s helpful is strong, intelligent voices speaking on notions of compassion.’
The Black National Anthem Promotes Segregationwww.youtube.com
Watts said that he felt similarly to groups like Black Lives Matter; he admitted to feeling like there was “a four-month period where that was really cool.”
However, Watts said he took issue with the idea of identity groups compelling society to change in a way that suits them, likening it to how a “xenophobic” or “racist” group might want others to forcibly conform to their ideology.
“It wasn’t helpful. It wasn’t helpful to me. What’s helpful is strong, intelligent voices speaking on notions of compassion, talking about science and art; the act of doing,” Watts added.
Steele called BLM a farce that was blown up for not following through on what it claimed it was representing.
Steele’s mention of segregation could come directly from the origins of the “black national anthem,” which the NAACP said “was a hymn written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900.”
The song was first performed in public by a choir of 500 children from the racially segregated Stanton School, the group stated.
The racial organization also described the political use of the song during the black civil rights era.
“Set against the religious invocation of God and the promise of freedom, the song was later adopted by NAACP and prominently used as a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.”
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