LETTER: NFL sowing the seeds of division
In Saturday’s Review-Journal sports section, Raiders Coach Jon Gruden said he and his team had discussed how to handle the playing of the national anthem at Sunday’s season opener in Carolina (“Gruden refuses to reveal Sunday’s anthem plans”). The NFL had already decided that both the national anthem and “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing” (said to be the Black national anthem) would be played at the beginning of every Week 1 game. So now we will have the national anthem, presumably for all Americans, and the Black national anthem for Black Americans. In the article, Coach Gruden goes on to say, “I just hope our country can unite quickly.”
At the opening of the Chiefs/Texans game on Thursday, they did that and many in the limited crowd booed them. That certainly did not seem to create unity.
Sports are at their best when they bring us together. All they are doing now is further dividing us by race.
