There is no evidence it was intentional, my guess would be it was not intentional. That being said it wouldn’t necessarily shock me if it was, I suspect the person running the anthem is some volunteer in a booth for an event like this, and maybe he didn’t like her and was fucking with her. All I’m suggesting is it isn’t crazy to think it could have happened, not that it actually did.
If it was played at the same time every day, except the day that she had a medal ceremony, and on that day, it was played at the time of the medal ceremony, what would you conclude?
It seems like that is assuming a conspiracy when it may have just been a coincidence.
It quite possibly was a coincidence that the only time that they played the anthem at a time other than 5:20 was when she was on the podium.
But, if you were there, on the podium, and the anthem, which you were told would not be played while you were on the anthem starts to play, what would you think?
The ideal solution would be to cut back on playings of the national anthem to the bare minimum necessary. International sporting events, like USA vs. some-other-nation at the FIFA World Cup? Sure. Every single NFL, NBA or MLB game? Not needed.
Like silenus said, I’m tired of performative patriotism. That’s all external performance. Show me real, sincere patriotism.
From the articles I’ve read, I get the sense that the organizers made a general announcement to all athletes about the timing of the anthem rather than telling Berry specifically. That is, I don’t get the sense that they spoke to her directly about the timing of the anthem to ensure she specifically didn’t have to stand while it was playing. I can understand her thinking it was done deliberately, but at this point I’m thinking she’s jumping to conclusions.
There’s a very big space between ‘not protected by law’ and ‘opposed by and prosecuted by the government’.
Let’s have an example. Police killing helpless prisoners has never been protected by law, but the government didn’t do a thing to stop it until we had bystanders filming them with cellphones and crowds of angry people like Gwen Berry demanding justice. Even then, the President of this wonderful, honorable, country tells cops “don’t be too nice” to prisoners.
In ordinary times I would probably agree with you. But these aren’t ordinary times. I’m going to go with “set-up” until it is proven otherwise.
Agreed. But that’d be almost impossible in the political situation today. Look at what happened when the Dallas Mavericks decided not to play the national anthem.
Okay she was pissed and it showed and she went on record and explained why.
What would she like to see happen wrt the NA?
Delay the anthem until the lights go out in the stadium to appease the triggered?
But then you’ll take away their protest podium and stifle their 1A rights?
It doesn’t appears like she’s the triggered one here.
Personally, I’m more offended by DJT dry-humping the flag on stage and by his supporters bringing the Confederate flag into the Capitol, but that’s just me.
That they thought playing the national anthem during a medal ceremony was a noncontroversial thing to do.
Did they forgot about the 12 month probations they gave her (and another athlete) for protesting on the podium at the Pan Am Games?
I guess it’s possible, since they forgot when they had scheduled playing the anthem.
Brat. Thank God we now have a word that smooths the curve between “uppity” and “thug”.
Well, something had to replace “urban”, what with all of the gentrification going on. Singular whistles just get too obvious sometimes.
Well, I actually think we could even skip it there. The bare minimum would military parades and maybe on July 4th.
Who gives a crap?
She gets to decide what she does. She can exercise her First Amendment rights as she sees fit, and does so. She’s free to criticize, just like you’re free to criticize her, and just like yet other folks are free to criticize you — and in the wake of all of that, the anthem can, well, still get played, regardless of what she’d like to see happen, right?
Ffs, dalej consistently using language like “brat,” “child,” “toddler,” “tantrum,” to describe people of color that he disagrees with is barely better than calling a black man “boy.” It’s 100% meant to diminish the person he’s talking about. How is this type of language allowed here?
OK major confuzzlment.
Are our teams sent off to the Olympics representing the US or not? If not, can I go compete in as Aruvqan, or am I there as Aruvqan Citizen of the US ? Is there not a name indicating that it is Team US, with spiffy red white and blue track suits …