But then that brings up the question of what to do if the person who’s actually singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” wants to take a knee. This is especially hard for women since they’re already trying to walk across deep grass in high heels, and getting up and down from the take-a-knee position would be awkward and potentially embarrassing, while the only alternative—getting down on both knees—would be reminiscent of Al Jolson in blackface singing “Mammy” and so obviously inappropriate under the circumstances, assuming that the gesture has something to do with Black Lives Matter in the first place—and I’m still not totally sure that it does.
Plus, now that everybody is taking a knee—the entire Dallas Cowboys team and the owner took knees on Monday night—it’s starting to lose power as a protest gesture, don’t you think? I mean, it’s one thing to get a dragon tattoo in 1984, but it doesn’t exactly brand you a rebel thirty years later when most of your friends already have them.
