Joining me to talk about free speech in sport are two professors

here at the University of Michigan.

To my immediate left is Dr. Fretz, who is a lecturer in a number of units on campus,

LSA, English, engineering, psychology and he's also a decorated veteran.

And we're gonna hear his perspective relative to how veterans are perceiving

this notion of free speech in sport.

To my further left is Professor Clague.

And Professor Mark Clague is a social professor in musicology.

And he researches music making and

his recent projects focus on the national anthems.

So we're gonna talk to him about how the national anthem plays in his conversation

of free speech and sport.

So I wanna actually begin with you, Professor Clague.

Talk to us, give us a brief history of the national anthem.

And then I'm gonna ask you, how'd it find its way to sporting events?

>> So the national anthem was written by, really a composer in a sense.

Because it was always a song, so an amateur songwriter, poet and

professional lawyer in Washington DC named Francis Scott Key wrote the lyric

after witnessing the Battle of Baltimore in September of 1814.

So it's part of the War of 1812, sort of the second revolution, if you will,

cuz it pitted the United States against the British again.

And the British were sort of kicking our butts, so they were doing really well and

we were not.

And I think Francis Scott Key, who had been at the battle of Washington just

a month earlier and witnessed the burning of the federal buildings, the capitol

building, and just a huge embarrassment for our nation, was also aboard ship

in Baltimore Harbor having negotiated a prisoner release from the British.

And they basically said you're gonna have to stay here while we take care

of Baltimore.

It should only take a few hours.

And so miraculously the United States won.

And it was because of the defenders of Fort McHenry which is the fort that

guards the mouth of Baltimore Harbor, if the British had been able to go in there,

they would have defeated us pretty easily.

But those defenders sort of held that position against all odds.

And then it was really Key's excitement,

his pride, his patriotism about the heroism of those defenders,

that inspired him to write the song, which is now known as the Star Spangled Banner.

Initially it was titled the Defence of Fort M'Henry.

So only later did it get that new title.

And that title comes from that last couplet of

just when it mentions the Star Spangled Banner over and over again in each verse.

And that then became the title of the song.

And it just sort of captured a moment in American history, and

was broadly distributed in the newspapers.

They would publish the lyrics in the newspaper and

say to this sort of famous tune called Anacreon in Heaven,

which started in England actually, and was the tune of an amateur musicians club.

It's often thought of as a drinking song.

And certainly in 18th century England,

you drank a lot because they had no water purification.

So you either had coffee, tea or beer basically.

So it was a song that people, it was about sociality,

it was about men largely coming together from the middle class.

But that became a popular song and lots and

lots of lyrics have been written to that same tune.

In my research I found over 200 different sets of lyrics

that have been sung to this tune in American history.

So an important thing about what Key does is he joins a conversation about

his vision for what America will be, having a strong military.

Being able to defeat the British rather than having them come in and

be able to hold towns hostage with their better fire power than we have.

So that's really where the song starts and it goes viral in a sense.

They didn't have tweets at the time, but it basically does the same thing.

And it goes viral by being printed from one newspaper to the next.

It eventually gets a piece of sheet music that tells people how to sing it.

So it really just sort of becomes part of the fabric of American life.

And I think it becomes a national anthem not so much because Congress passes a law

in 1931, which they did, but more because people just were singing it.

Whenever the nation was in crisis, whenever there was a threat, whenever

there needed to be a sense of unity, then that song was one of things we sang.

And so the Civil War was a really important marker for

the song the Star Spangled Banner.

We had lots of different patriotic songs that were eventually proposed as

a national anthem.

Everything from Yankee Doodle to America the Beautiful.

Hail, Columbia was really an anthem in the 19th century.

But it was because of the Civil War, because that flag represented the Union

that the sonic equivalent of the flag, Francis Scott Key's song,

the Star Spangled Banner, really rises to prominence.

The Civil War is also a pivot,

an important moment in the history of the song in sports.

The first time we know that the Star Spangled Banner was played at a sporting

event was May 15th, 1862 in Brooklyn, New York and there was a live band, right?

And it was an opening of a brand new ballpark in Brooklyn.

And of course, the Civil War was going on.

So from the very start it's a political act to play this patriotic song in

the North to support the war effort, but also to celebrate a great baseball game,

to celebrate the inauguration of this new park.

And so you really have to split the history of the anthem and

sports, from a technical standpoint, into two things,

before stadium public address systems and after, right?

So in the 1900s, if you wanted to have the anthem played or

any patriotic song played, you had to hire a band.

You had no loud speakers that could blast all over a sports stadium, right?

So it's not until the late 1920s, the creation of talkies in the movies that

sort of tied to the same thing creating these speakers that could broadcast

to a large crowd, that you start having a chance to have recordings play the anthem.

And of course, when you have a recording do it, you can do it all the time.

You can't really do it all the time before that.

So it was played at baseball games frequently but usually only for opening

day and the World Series, or championship games, those would be the only times you

would have the anthem really before World War I or before the 1920s.

>> Mm-hm, so it sounds like there's a [COUGH] implied and

even express connection between the anthem and patriotism in sport.

What makes sport this venue for patriotism?

>> I think there are a couple of things.

I mean, one thing, our sporting games pit two sides against each other.

I mean, it's a kind of ritualized warfare.

If you go back to the early days of the Olympics,

it was about training Greek men to be the defenders of the populace, right?

It was part of about a kind of athletic male vigor,

and those were also your soldiers.

And so there is a kind of natural connection I think there, too.

The other real reason is business reason.

It's great if you can make your product patriotic and so

that you're expressing loyalty to the country as to buy that product, right?

So when you go to a sporting even, you're not only going to this game,

you're actually participating in this American ritual.

I mean, what's more, it's like baseball, apple pie, right, is American?

And so, and I think basketball and

football are even more important now than the baseball.

And so if you wanna define your sporting event as sort of inherently American,

that the idea of consuming and purchasing a ticket is inherently patriotic and

supporting the country, that's really good for business.

So I think there's one moment that really makes that happen which is World War I.

In World War I, professional sports,

mainly baseball, was declared a non-essential occupation.

And so if you were a baseball star, and

usually it was a man between the age of about 18 and 30, right?

So just the kind of guy you want in the military, really athletic,

coordinated, all the skills of baseball would be skills you'd want someone with

who is fighting on your side.

A lot of those guys got inducted into the army.

And so there weren't any good players left on a lot of these teams.

The teams that did well were the teams had pitchers that were over the age of

30 because they didn't get brought into the military.

And so it was looking like actually the baseball season,

the professional baseball season in 1919 was gonna be cancelled

because they just didn't have enough good players to play.

And then, of course, the war ends in November of 1918,

sort of saving the 1919 season, and I think at that point, baseball executives

learned We're not gonna be non-essential next time a war happens.

We're gonna be essential.

We're gonna be part of the war on the home front.

So by being patriotic, by being part of the morale of the country,

defined now this is essential to any war action.

So when World War II came around, baseball was not considered non-essential.

So it's really, World War II is the pivot point.

That's when we start playing the anthem at every single game.

And particularly the National Football League, there's a great photo op with

the President, Truman, and the head of the National Football League

giving him a sort of gold ticket to any game he ever wants to go to in the future.

And they say, Mr. President, we're not just gonna play the anthem in wartime.

We're gonna play the anthem all the time, because it's good for our country.

Of course, it was also really good for football.

>> Right, so [COUGH] it's interesting how all the dynamics of

the inherent properties in sport, how it's connected to patriotism and

the role of the national anthem.

As a veteran,

you talk about the symbolic nature of the flag and the anthem at a sport event.

As a veteran, when you're at events, do you get that pride,

besides the pride you may get when your team is playing or winning?

But talk about it from a veteran's perspective.

>> Yeah, I think over and above whatever sort of baseline citizen pride you have,

I do think it's important to consider for

veterans just how deeply that culture sort of revolves around the flag.

And so it was alluded to earlier the idea that the sports are somehow

sort of martial contests.

And we talked about the linemen are in the trenches and

the teams are fighting it out.

And you talk to some of the best in these sports and

they really view it as a not truly existential but they are.

They're at war with the other team.

And the people next to them are their friends and

they bond under these very stressful physical conditions.

And it's very similar to what goes on in the military.

That's, I think, one thing.

And the other part is that the reverence for

the flag is woven into the military culture in a very deep and

profound way that starts from the beginning of the training.

And as we've shifted, we haven't had a draft in so many decades.

And there's such a small percentage now, less than 1%

sort of carrying the weight of the military obligation for the country.

It sort of fades from sight.

People don't realize the unique features of their culture.

So if we could teleport magically to a Marine Corps base anywhere in

the United States this morning and witness some children playing outside,

let's say that the school didn't have school that day,

at some point in the morning on every military base, there is a bugle call that

signals we're about to play the National Anthem and raise the colors of the base.

Every single human being outside of a building at that point,

including 4-year-old children, 14-year-old children,

somebody walking alone in crutches, whatever, will stop.

They will face the flag.

If they can't see the flag,

they will face in whatever direction they know a flag to be.

And they will stand at attention until the last note of that anthem.

And then they will continue on their business.

And if you look in the military's, the most iconic moment for

example against the Marine Corps, the flag raising Mount Suribachi.

Or the idea so many of them that they would literally conceal and

luckily most of them don't have to actually make this choice,

but were the choice to put the flag back up under [INAUDIBLE],

the flag had fallen to the ground and it needed be raised back up.

Knowing that there was about 80%, or

90% chance they would be killed in the attempt, they would go do it.

So this issue around the flag, and the respect for the flag,

and the flag as the representation of everything your fighting for

is really deeply woven into the military culture.

And so that's the thing that's kinda getting stepped on to some veterans and

folks that are sort of oriented towards that culture or highly respect or

knowledgeable about that culture.

That's the bruise that you're poking, but it isn't something that is, I think,

really widely understood.

>> So now, based on that, I wanna get into the crux of this long-standing debate

about free speech and sport.

So you mentioned the things that's tugging at you when you see athletes' expression.

So from your perspective, when you see athletes kneeling or

having any other gestures during the National Anthem, is that offensive to you?

Do you see it as anti-American or is it their own element of patriotism?

>> I personally think it's fantastic.

I like to see it because that is the thing that's amazing to me

about this country, right?

That everyone has the right to express themselves.

And the government, obviously the first amendment,

the amendment says you will not be interfered with by the government, right?

But in this case, it's still the same principle,

in that you're free to express these concerns.

And as you mentioned, you use this sort of bully pulpit to bring attention to these

incredibly serious issues.

And so I think it's fantastic.

I dont find it offensive at all.

That said, I do see how others who maybe have not developed the understanding

of how serious the problems that are being sort of raised are and

also really are just focusing on, hey, that's my ox being gored, right?

This flag is important to me.

It's okay for you to raise the point but you pick on something else.

Don't use my important symbol to, and they can have that opinion, right?

I understand where they're sort of coming from.

But I think overall, the great thing about this is that you can have these

conversations and that to me is the difference.

I've been in countries where you can't have these conversations.

Or you don't and it's very violent and it's very much about this expression of

sort of just raw power and dominating whoever you see as bad or different.

It's not a good way to go.

I like our system much better.

So I think absolutely they have the right to do it and

I think it's fantastic, right?

And I think across the communities,

it's kinda mixed if you go older on the veteran community.

If you look say, American Legion, I think was just trying to do a Super Bowl ad that

it was a very neutral plea to just say, please respect the flag and our veterans.

That didn't get aired because they thought it would probably be a little too

controversial.

When you look at the surveys,

[INAUDIBLE] who represents sort of the younger generation,

they got like a 98% thumbs up to, yes, they have the right to protest, right?

And this is among the younger veterans.

And they were sort of two-thirds positive on that they had the right

to specifically protest and kneel in the games and whatnot.

So as the trends go younger, I think more of the younger veterans respond

less viscerally to sort of the flag.

But for all veterans, there's still that sort of discomfort but then for many,

it's like but that's fine because that's what the country's about,

so let's have the conversation.

>> [COUGH] So Dr. Clay, from your perspective, you shared with us the whole

notion of the history, the cultural biology of the National Anthem.

There are many people who have problems with the song, with the lyrics.

And so the athletes are saying, you mentioned it earlier,

that the anthem is like a rallying cry that unites us.

And athletes are saying there's a false sense of unity,

there are things that are going on.

So talk about from your perspective how you support or

whether you support their expressions during the National Anthem.

>> Well, I definetely support their expressions, and

part of that actually comes from the history.

The song has been used as a vehicle for protest for 200 years.

One of my favorite lyrics that were sort of the alternate lyrics that are written

to the Star Spangled Banner, the way in which the writing of new lyrics referring

to contemporary social issues as a kind of conversation about the nation,

there are lyrics about temperance, about women's rights.

And then some of the most powerfully actually about abolition,

about the end of slavery.

So we have a song that was actually written in Michigan in 1844, was published

in an abolitionist newspaper here in Ann Arbor called the Signal of Liberty.

And it's basically calling out the fact that

how can we have this song that's talking about the land of the free and

the home of the brave when we have so many people captive and enslaved?

There's probably in 1814, there are, I don't know,

one-and-a half million slaves, right?

We get up to four million people, human beings.

That are forced into labor in this incredibly cruel and evil system.

And in 1844, they're using the fact that Francis Scott Key's lyrics have

become part of the sense of the fabric of the nation as a symbol to call out this.

One of the lines is The Star Spangled Banner is at the half mast of freedom.

And this is not the home of the brave, but the home of the slave.

So they're using that irony between freedom and

slavery to really send an important political message.

I would even say that Francis Scott Key's original lyric which seems so natural and

true to us today.

So much a part of the fabric of what it means to be American because of this

repetition.

It was a protest too, because we had a very weak military at the time.

We didn't really have a navy, that's why we couldn't get rid of the British.

They were just running up and down the Chesapeake.

So we can do anything about it, and yeah he's calling for that strong nation.

He wants a country that has the sort of nationalist feeling.

And in 1814 were really more of a bunch of different states,

we're not really a nation.

And ironically when Key wrote the lyrics, there were more states than

there were stars on the flag, because the flag wasn't that important of a symbol.

There's this kind of symbiotic relationship between song and

flag that the both make the other one more important, right?

And that's grown up and been part of Eric's life in the military,

which you have to have a huge respect for

someone who's wanting to lay down their life just to have this symbol.

Sspan proud and tall and to be a call to everyone around them under duress, right?

To stand up and to really serve the nation.

And that's sort of what the song and flag do for the whole country.

I mean, there are people in Florida, a hurricane happens, or people in Alaska,

an avalanche happens.

We have to have the sense of shared responsibility that we will go and

help someone that we've never met.

They're not part of our community, we've never seen them, and

they're not part of our family.

We have to create this kind of allegiance that's gonna pull people together to face

an external threat, right?

To wanna be in the military and and sacrifice for everyone at home.

And that's sort of the function of national and we need it.

I mean every four years when there's a new presidential election,

we have to have a peaceful transition of power.

When people realized that the country as a whole is more important,

than whether their candidate won a lot, right?

So there's a real importance to the song, and I think that it's because it's

been a vehicle for protests from Key to Abolitionism to Women's Rights.

Because it reflects the country and

if you wanna say something that everybody's gonna listen to.

If you say it using the The Star-Spangled Banner you're gonna get

people's attention.

Sometimes you can say it about the words, we don't do that so much any more.

20th century is more about how you perform it, when you have an African-American

singer singing at the inauguration of a President or singing at the Superbowl,

it says this person is one of us.

This person has a right to sing the song, right?

We have to understand that the song is everybody's song.

And then you have someone like Colin Kaepernick who says,

this is a moment when all eyes are on me.

Everyone's standing silently, hand over heart, standing up, looking at this flag,

and if I do something different, it's gonna get some attention, right?

And so even though kneeling would normally be a sense of reverence,

would be a sense of respect.

Just the fact that it's something different.

Just the fact that we have this moment, this ritual about being all one and

sort of ignoring our differences.

Colin Kaepernick explain and say well, actually things are different and

my community is not being served by this land of the free equally to everyone else.

And I think it's not so much a protest about the song, it's using the the ritual

as a platform and calling attention to the Black Lives Matter Movement,

to the injustice, the faces of people color in our country.

And it's really that we have to fix,.

>> And you say that that, and there has been questions about what is that, right?

So, to what extent both of you do you think the media

changed the narrative reframe the narrative because

rather than it being a protest of social injustice in America.

It became a display of anti-Americanism,

anti-patriotism disrespect, disregard for the veteran.

What role do you think the media played in moving this narrative?

Or do you think it played a role in moving the narrative?

>> We definitely had some stove pipes developing,

obviously it spreads across the whole continuum.

But you have sort of far right media, far left media that are really very interested

in sort of predigesting inflammatory little nuggets and

throwing them to their base and sort of getting that to flare up.

And somewhere towards the middle you still have what I consider sort of

like the classic original intent of media,

which is to sort of put things out there for

the population to sort of independently sort of process and think about.

>> Uh-huh. >> But it's so much of this, and so

out here absolutely there's sort of to ignore the actual main things trying

to be discussed and just create a little brush fire to sort of distract.

And that, I think that's far too common and super unfortunate, right?

I think in a way that's the symptom of a larger problem and

it really feels to me like a sort of a toxin coursing through the body politic.

I don't think anything good can come from it, so.

>> Mark, you wanna add anything about how you see the media's role

in this conversation?

>> Yeah. I think that so

much of our media scape is now driven by likes and retweets and anger.

Whatever icon and emoji you put behind things, that that passion and

emotion is what catches fire as Ericho Sing.

So even if the media just covered everything completely,

every single perspective is there.

It's the one that's inflammatory that would rise to the top.

And of course the media needy needs that, right?

It drives our economics, now people are not subscribing to newspapers,

they're clicking and reach reading and it's the advertising that's driving it.

So, it's partially the media's responsibility, it's partially

our responsibility as consumers about how thoughtful we are about things.

So, it's definitely part of the sort of ecosystem of news and

information now that drives it.

But it is easy to lose the point, and

I do think one of the challenges about any anthem is making everybody feel included.

And in some ways, we've got people on the far right and the far left,

who are both sort of left out of that feeling in some ways at the anthem,

in the way it's being treated anyway, represents them.

And that's a problem.

>> Speaking of the problem, then, do we need that anthem?

Do we need a new anthem?

What are your thoughts about that?

Because there's lots of conversation about the lyrics in the anthem,

what it supposed to do, what it's intending to do?

But yet, the reality of what our country is, and

if this is a fair depiction of where our country is?

So the question is do we need a new national anthem?

>> So, I think a new national anthem would be great.

I think they're hard to, how do you make one?

Like Francis Scott Key was not writing an anthem, he was marking a moment he was

responding to a moment of heroism that he thought compelled him to write a song.

There's lots of other songs that refer to the moment, if one of those were to catch

fire, if one of those people thought this is actually what represents us now,

then it would become the new national anthem.

As I said, it's not so much a law to me, it's really people's relationship.

It's gonna be hard to replace The Star Spangled Banner,

in part because it's got a 203 year head start on everybody.

So it's gonna be hard to catch up with that, the weight of history.

I mean, the fact that it was there at the Civil War, and all the sacrifices that

were made for the flag and all the wars we've had a long time.

Sort of really difficult to replace but it's not impossible, but you're not gonna

be able to just like have a contest and create a new national anthem.

>> No no you teachers are pretty bright students in musicality,

so that may be a class project per se.

>> Most countries that they have a problem they tweak a few words, so

that's one thing.

I think the real problem is the reference to hirelings and

slaves which is in the third voice, a third verse rather.

There's an argument that that's not actually part of the anthem to begin with,

it's part of the original lyric.

But in 1931 the bill that makes it the anthem says that

the words in music known as The Star Spangled Banner is the national anthem and

the third verse was cut out in World War I.

And so if you look at all those publications up through World War II,

they don't have the third verse.

It's really the Internet that's brought that verse back.

But the reference to slavery is really problematic.

It could mean a couple things.

I mean, a lot of white, rich people worried about being slaves of the British.

Certainly, in the first revolution,

and the War of 1812 was sort of the second revolution.

I think Key was probably being more precise.

Which is he was talking about the colonial marines, who were escaped African American

slaves, who fought on the British side rather than on the American side.

And they fought for their freedom, and they got their freedom,

which is fantastic.

But for Key, they were part of the enemy.

For me, the thing about the song is that it's not racist

because there are whites and blacks fighting on both sides of the war.

There were a lot more blacks on the British side than on the American side.

There are a few escaped slaves and

a few free blacks who were fighting in Fort McHenry.

So Key's lyric really is about the good guys and the bad guys, and

there are blacks and whites on both sides.

So it's hard for me to read some of the stuff that's talking about

these really awful things that the lyric could be about,

about certain reveling in the blood of the enemy, and all that stuff.

I don't think it's that critical.

And Key, himself, his relationship with slavery is bizarre

because he both owned slaves and he did pro bono work to free slaves.

And so we could go into the complexities of that.

But for me,

he's one of the more progressive people of that time period which, of course,

was a time period when the evil of slavery was legal in the United States.

So it's a tricky thing to think about Jefferson or

our founding fathers and that.

But for me what redeems the song is what we did with it.

I mean, the Civil War's about ending slavery, and

that's when the song becomes important.

So I think our symbols are more about how we animate them than about

where they came from.

So that's our responsibility now, to live up to those ideals, and

that I think is what Kaepernick's after.

Right, he's after this song, not changing song.

It's not a protest of the song.

It's a protest of how we're behaving in relationship to the ideals that

are in the song.

And we're falling short for so

many people in our communities, and that's what we need to fix.

>> Okay, I want ask you one last question.

And I'll give you both a chance to make some closing remarks.

So as a veteran, you talk about the pride that you feel.

If your're at a sport event, and they're not playing the anthem,

does that diminish the overall experience that you have?

Or is it important because of the role that sport plays in the fabric of our

culture that you can get that type of stimulation?

So would your experience be diminished if we didn't have the flag,

if we didn't have the national anthem?

As a veteran, would you feel like something's missing?

>> That's a very interesting question.

I suppose in the sense of you've become accustomed to it,

then it would be noticed.

I think for me personally, it wouldn't be a matter of real concern.

I tend to view these things sort of as if

I'm at this stadium, someone owns the stadium and is putting on this product,

this entertaining product for me, and I'm there to see that, their choices about

what they do will then influence my willingness to purchase their product.

And so for me personally, it's not a real strong issue.

If they really felt it really helped their marketing, as we mentioned earlier,

then maybe they see a decrease in ticket sales or something.

But for me personally, I don't think it would be that much of an issue.

I appreciate it when it's there.

Every once in a while, I'll be at a meeting where people stand up and

still do the Pledge of Allegiance.

And I'm like, I remember this from when I was very young.

My children are not having the experience of doing that everyday,

so these cultural touchstones shift and change.

I mean, I think we can recognize that in eras past,

there was a much more coherent, overwhelming almost,

collaboration between almost all aspects of society to say here are the norms.

Here's what we do.

And everything, church, and school, and all the adults,

all reinforce this whole narrative, and rules, and everything.

And a lot of that has been stripped away with, I think,

some very good effects because there was a lot of unpleasantness that

was buried within this very smooth surface, where everyone was quiet.

And so now with that sort of gone, some people sort of miss that.

But I think there's, on the net, a lot of positives to it.

So I think we don't have to have the experience personally.

And I get the sense from most of the vets that I've talked to that having the Anthem

at a sporting event is not a game changer for them.

It's a routine that we do.

And, much as they would when they were on the base, when it's played,

they show respect because it's important to them.

But if they're at a baseball game or some other kinda game and

it's not played, I don't perceive it as sort of mandatory.

>> Okay, well, you both have offered such unique insight.

You're perspective as a veteran.

Your work on the National Anthem and the Star Spangled Banner.

I wanna give you an opportunity now, both of you, to offer any call to action or

any closing remarks relative to free speech in sport.

I'll begin with you, Dr. Fretz.

>> Okay, sure, I guess my sort of takeaway that I would like you to think about

is something I offer to my students a lot.

Because the campus is obviously a place of a lot of collision, a lot of ideas.

You want that collision.

It's so important.

It's just one of the greatest features about our country is that you can have

this collision with adverse ideals and ideas.

And sort of like, as Mill says, it's only through

the collision of these adverse ideas that you ever get closer to the truth.

And so this idea that you have to beat the other people somehow, or that they're

evil because they have a different view, it's so troubling to me, right.

You could look at this.

Let's just say we see Colin Kaepernick kneeling, and you say, well, I'm so

offended.

How dare he kneel in the presence of, during the flag, can't he show respect?

But the other flip side would be,

here is this gentleman who is taking what he has to understand to be a very risky,

personally deleterious stance in a very public way.

What would be motivating someone to take this kind of risk,

and to endure the kind of censure that he's going to get from different quarters?

And shouldn't that signal you that you should maybe

take a look at what he's bringing forward because he's willing to do this?

And somehow that sort of gets missed.

As I say to my students, as you collide with all these different ideas here, just

remember that different is not the same as wrong, which is not the same as evil.

And when you just rocket right across that arc, every time, in response to anything

that threatens your preset beliefs, I just think that's a recipe for nothing good.

And so if you really, to get back to the point you made earlier about just

having to do this hard work of not succumbing to the stove pipes, and

how you're being pre-fed all these things that agree with you, actually question.

Here's a link that, a link to a story that confirms all of my worst fears,

let me retweet this immediately.

And it turns out, of course, that it's completely fraudulent,

there's not a bit of truth.

But you don't stop yourself and say am I being lied to for whatever reason?

And how can I be a responsible contributor to this dialogue and help the people who?

If you see Colin Kaepernick kneeling, and it doesn't get your attention that there's

something wrong, we have to really function as a nation.

You've gotta get to the point where you say let me

understand why this is happening.

I mean, maybe after I really understand it,

I'll still just think it's of no consequence.

But let me at least take that as a signal to get in there and figure it out.

>> Wonderful, Mark?

>> For me, Francis Scott Key's act of writing these words in the first place

is a kind of act of citizenship.

I mean, he saw a moment that he thought was heroic, that was really important for

the country.

And he memorialized it in a lyric to be put to a song.

And I think it's important that it's a song because it carries a kind of emotion.

I mean, there are those high notes in the Star Spangled Banner that we

all struggle to sing.

And reaching those high notes takes a lot of gusto, I mean, it takes some passion.

You really have to sort of belt it out there to get there.

And I think the kind of struggle that's in the music.

The example of people like Francis Scott Key writing the song, and

then going to the newspaper offices, getting it printed,

distributing it to the soldiers at Fort McHenry as a kind of thanks.

But, also, he gave it to people who were all around the country, and

then they take it with them when they leave Baltimore.

And so that sort of helps spread the word.

And so he's, Key has started taking a personal responsibility,

he's doing something.

He sees something in the country.

He wants to comment on it, or change it, or talk about it, and

he makes something happen.

And so I think that's, for

me, the ultimate message of the Star Spangled Banner

is that our country isn't this sacred object, the song, or even the flag.

It's really what people do to bring those things to life.

And I love the fact that a song is something you have to sing.

It doesn't exist unless you're willing to make it happen.

And so there's this aspect of the Anthem that's about making it happen.

And I think if there's a message, it's people like Steph Curry, and LeBron James,

and Colin Kaepernick are making it happen in their way.

And I think if everybody were to do that, too, to follow that example,

we would get across those barriers.

We would bring people together.

We would have those kind of conversations.

And some of those ideas would win out.

And those would hopefully be those ideas that,

like our own country, we've changed over time.

We're not the same as we were in 1814 when the song was written.

And that's a good thing.

And so the question is what are we gonna be in 3014?

That's really the question.

It's about what these people.

All of today have a responsibility for making these symbols stand for

something beautiful, to stand for freedom, to stand for equality.

And we have to make that happen.

It's not something that's there forever just because the song is there,

just because the flag is there.

They can't be empty, static things.

They have to be verbs, they have to be something we do.

Not just something we hang on a wall, or put on a pole.

So if we can make patriotism an act of citizenship,

I think we can get to where we wanna be in the future.

>> Well, you've given us some great information, great insight.

I hope you've enjoyed this segment of our conversation with Dr.

Mark Clay and also Dr. Eric Fretz on free speech and sport.

The Intersection of Patriotism and Sport: A Discussion with Eric Fretz & Mark Clague

Free Speech in Sport Teach-Out

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