Kari Lake is still pushing back against the NFL for playing the Black National Anthem before games.
On Thursday night, as the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions prepared for their matchup, the former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona took to X, formerly known as Twitter, expressing her dissatisfaction with the league’s ongoing decision, Fox News reported.
“I hear the @NFL is still trying to force this divisive nonsense down America’s throats. I won’t stand for it. Literally,” Lake wrote. “America has only ONE National Anthem and that Anthem is color blind.”
A local student choral group sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which the NAACP began to promote as the Black national anthem in 1917, before “The Star-Spangled Banner” performance during the pregame rituals.
Lake’s post featured a photo of herself sitting during the Black national anthem at Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona, earlier this year.
The NFL started playing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before games during the 2020 football season after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, a tragedy that sparked a nationwide uprising against racial injustice.
In April 2021, the Black national anthem played before the draft and Super Bowl LV. Gospel duo Mary Mary sang it before Super Bowl LVI, where the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals.
Lake previously told Fox she opposed a Black national anthem because the lyrics of “The Star-Spangled Banner” “ring true for every single American Citizen regardless of their skin color.”
After her refusal to stand during the anthem at Super Bowl LVII went viral and caused a social media storm, Black conservatives rallied around her.
Former NFL player Burgess Owens, a Republican congressman from Utah, and former California governor candidate Larry Elder supported Lake, denouncing the idea of a different anthem based on skin color.
“I agree with Kari Lake. We have one national anthem, and it’s THE national anthem,” Elder said, according to Fox. “I am as opposed to playing both anthems as I am to the term ‘African – America’ and to Black History Month.”
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