Star Spangled Banner

This week in class we spent a day discussing the National Anthem and the affect that it has on Americans today. A huge point that we discussed was the fact that not many people are aware that there is more to the song then just the paragraph sang the makes the National Anthem. The rest of the song is the complete Star Spangled Banner. You would think that an important song about our country everyone would know, but no one really does or did, me included.
There is controversy over the song and whether or not it's racist. The third paragraph is a bit contradicting to the rest of the song. Our National Anthem is all about celebrating the victories we've accomplished as a nation and all the things we've done to protect our flag. The third paragraph says, "their blood has wash'd out the foul footsteps' pollution." and "No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave." When someone reads these lines for the first time it's a bit confusing to see the true meaning and if it's actually meant how it sounds. In the video we watched in class about it, we were able to see people's first reactions while they read the lines out loud and that was interesting to watch. Some people were shocked that a song about our nation in which is  representing our flag would say such things. A few people even said that they probably would stop listening to the song after reading those lines and that they would stop giving it so much respect. Maybe the song should just stop after the first paragraph?
Another discussion we had about this song is if we did change it to get rid of that paragraph. This song was made many many years ago and those times of slavery are over for the most part here in the United States and it is viewed wrong in today's world so why not get rid of the paragraph? Change is really hard for people and this is such a famous, old song about our nation that people probably don't want to touch it to get rid of anything. I think if we look at this song as a representation of our country and how we act as one, then the paragraph should be removed from the song because that's not how we act today. Unfortunately, since the song is so old, we will never be able to know the real meaning of the paragraph and whether or not it was meant to be racist but people can only judge it off of how they read it.
When you listen to someone singing the National Anthem at a sporting event or on tv for something, it can really move you, especially if it's someone like Whitney Houston singing it. It's meant to get you going and feel the pride you have for our country but when you continue reading or listening to the rest of the song, it can begin to get you down and that's very contradicting of the main purpose of the song. Im sure that if this was a hot topic of conversation, there would be a lot of back and forth about removing the third paragraph. This song is supposed to represent our country in the best way it can and by those words or lyrics, it's a bit contradicting to explain what our country is really about.