Sunday, July 04, 2021

Gwen Berry and the flag

 A few days ago, Gwen Berry qualified to represent the US in the Summer Olympics.  

She refused to stand at attention for the national anthem. 

Back in 2015, after winning a hammer throwing event, Berry celebrated with the US flag.

Not hypocrisy.  Just changing her opinion.

Interestingly, her current opinion is that the 3rd stanza of the anthem, which is almost never sung, insults black American slaves (she says this is obvious). There has been debate about this for years but no substantial percentage of opinion maintains that it refers to American slaves, in fact this contention seems to me to be illogical. The two predominate opinions are that it refers to British indentured sailors as slaves or that it refers to a small contingent of British soldiers comprised of freed slaves. Berry also contends that the anthem was 'sprung on her by surprise' which is a comment on her honesty as she has been competing in sports events for many years and should know the protocol by now. A few years before the 2015 picture was taken Berry made a number of racist tweets. This, while obnoxious is also not connected with hypocrisy.

 

Image 1 comes from an article from the AP carried by MSN. Image 2 is from the Daily Mail (a UK media company).