Originally Posted by
dawg80
Out of curiosity, how is the National Anthem racist? Francis Scott Key wrote a poem to describe what he witnessed when the Brits were trying to capture Fort McHenry, but failed. Actually, the Americans had both slaves and free blacks fighting on our side. I don't think the Brits had any black soldiers there, although they might have since the Brits had black regiments from the West Indies. Several such black regiments did fight for the Brits at the Battle of New Orleans. But then we had both slaves and free blacks fighting for our side at New Orleans too. One of the best units Jackson had at New Orleans was a Natchitoches battalion of free blacks (many of whom owned slaves) under Major Plauche.
Anyway, back to our Anthem. There was no effort, by either side, to single out blacks, like...oh! there's a bunch of blacks over there, let's all turn our cannons on 'em! Key's poem, the lyrics for our Anthem, was all about a battle. It was irrelevant what race a soldier happened to be. "bombs bursting in air" and sending shrapnel screaming toward the ground doesn't seek out skin color.