Watch: Singer's Mic Keeps Cutting Out During National Anthem, So Arrowhead Stadium Crowd Erupts in Song
Kansas City Chiefs’ fans may have walked away from Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals with heavy hearts after their team failed to secure a spot in what would have been their third consecutive Super Bowl — but not before joining together in an awe-inspiring moment that will most certainly warm any patriot’s heart.
While singer Ashanti’s rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner” was marred by ongoing technical difficulties, which caused her mic to cut in and out, the crowd filled in for her, joining together to impressively belt out the national anthem in deafening unison between enthusiastic cheers.
Check out the incredible moment; I dare ya not to get misty (I’ve already failed):
I’d like to believe we started a movement. Don’t forget that. #USA #nationalanthem #nfl pic.twitter.com/eG3YVMDOq9
— Nicole Raviv (@thenicoleraviv) January 31, 2022
The video was shared to Twitter by singer Nicole Raviv, who had a similar experience during her performance of the national anthem during the 2021 NHL playoffs and was so delighted by the crowd participation, she intentionally incorporated them into the anthem during subsequent performances throughout the playoffs, The Daily Wire reported.
The Coliseum comes together for the anthem. ??#Isles pic.twitter.com/7HCVMjM2To
— Olympic Hockey on NBC (@NBCSportsHockey) June 9, 2021
If Raviv and her team really started a movement, let’s hope it keeps catching!
Sunday’s heartwarming moment was certainly a refreshing change from the divisiveness that has dominated coverage of the NFL for too long, and I sincerely pray that the pendulum is swinging. Patriotism might be making a comeback.
Since 2015, anthem singing at football games has become a controversial affair, following former 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s preferred method of protesting what he perceived as systemic racism — kneeling during the national anthem.
The trend, sadly, caught on with many players in the NFL — and then across other sports leagues — virtue-signaling support for an unnecessarily divisive movement that was alienating to spectators and other players alike who opposed racism and loved their flag.
And I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you can do both — and I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of Americans do.
You see, what was sad about this trend was not that these players were using their influence to signal their support for a protest movement they had every free right to support, but that they did so in such a divisive way that left no room to do both.
The national anthem never had to get dragged into it.
Our nation has come a very long way when it comes to systemic racism, but instead of using his influence to draw attention to incidents of police brutality or other civil rights abuses in a way that welcomed all Americans, Kaepernick alienated anyone who loved their flag and was grateful for those who sacrificed so much to protect our values.
That’s due to the rhetoric of the movement that Kap was promoting — rhetoric which carried over into other movements, such as Black Lives Matter.
Black Lives Matter is not simply committed to combating racism — as a far-left Marxist movement, they’re committed to decidedly anti-American ideological rhetoric that goes way, way beyond the assertion that “black lives matter.”
If it had just been about promoting the value of black lives, the movement never would have been so divisive.
Millions and millions of regular, everyday Americans, NFL fans and otherwise, love black lives and their country and never want to be forced to choose by these woke corporate-backed activists who are clearly far more interested in exposure and personal gain than they ever were in making our country a better place for all Americans.
There are many wealthy and powerful people who rely on hateful rhetoric and division to pull a profit, stay in power and maintain a stranglehold on the narrative.
These corporations, politicians and radical activists, however, simply don’t speak for the American people.
They can try to turn us against one another on the basis of our skin color, how we vote or what we worship, but I still believe that the great American experiment of peaceful pluralism hasn’t failed yet.
We have been through too much together as a nation to let our differences tear us apart, and any attempt to do so has failed thus far because we’ve always had a common goal.
I believe the American people are not beyond being able to live according to one of the precious pearls of wisdom left to us by Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
May the shared love we have for our country rise above the hatred that the elite is constantly seeking to stoke between members of its populace — the hatred that undermines the strength and might of a united people.
After all, this is what the elite fear the most.
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