Leave it to our gigantic media conglomerates to double down on bad ideas.
Repeating a controversial move from last year’s Super Bowl (and most recent sports events since 2020), the NFL announced that they are beginning Super Bowl LVIII with the so-called “Black National Anthem,” as well as the actual national anthem.
As announced by Adam Schefter, an ESPN reporter and podcast host, on X (formerly Twitter), the NFL has chosen country legend Reba McEntire to sing the national anthem, rapper Post Malone (of all people) to sing “America the Beautiful,” and singer/actress Andra Day, most famous for playing Billie Holliday in the 2021 biopic “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Certainly the folks on X (formerly Twitter), aren’t altogether enthused by its inclusion in the Super Bowl. User Eli Racks rhetorically asked “so yall just going to be have people stand for 25 minutes,” while other users, like PolkTheArtist, asked why “do we need Lift Every Voice and Sing?”