‘O Canada’ singers add ‘all lives matter’ to anthem at All-Star Game

[Night Watchman]

Source: Sports Illustrated

The performers of the Canadian national anthem at Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game added the phrase “All Lives Matter” to their rendition of “O Canada.”

The Canadian group The Tenors changed lyrics from the first verse of the song, substituting “With glowing hearts we see thee rise, the True North strong and free,” to “We're all brothers and sisters, all lives matter.”

The Tenors released a statement about the anthem, condemning the member of the group who changed the lyrics, saying he did so without the knowledge of the other members.



Read more: http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/07/12/o-canada-tenors-anthem-singers-all-lives-matter

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If he did it without the knowledge of the other three, then why weren't they singing over him instead of being silent?

[IronLionZion]

1. Because all anthems matter!

[Night Watchman]

4. But not all Causes

Look, these guys are Canadian: if they want to alter their country's anthem, fine. But Canada doesn't have anywhere near the level of racism that we do. It also has very restrictive gun laws. Congrats to Canada on both counts!


BUT

"All Lives Matter" is a politically-charged slogan in this country that is used by a lot of white folks to trump (no pun intended in this case) "Black Lives Matter." It's total bullshit, and to have it echoed by a foreigner whose country doesn't have to deal with the same problems that we do is offensive to me. /rant.

[Saviolo]

7. Oh, Canada has its share of racism

It may not be quite as overt as the US, but we have some pretty big problems here, too. And in big cities like Toronto, we also have POC being killed by police. There is an active BLM chapter here in Toronto, and they recently got in some trouble because they were invited as honoured guests for this year's Pride parade, and they held up the parade for 30 minutes. There was a thread about it here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141507973

(and my opinion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141507973#post21)

The racism in Canada is less overt and more ingrained, which makes it harder to talk about in some ways. Because so many Canadians really do see Canada as a post-racial country, any insinuation that there is still a sly and ingrained racism in the system here is met with defensiveness. I do recommend reading some of Desmond Cole's stuff (https://twitter.com/DesmondCole). He's an activist and columnist who goes to bat for racial equality and an end to police discrimination against POC.

So, yes... some of that All Lives Matter baloney has spilled over to Canada, and I've seen a bunch of people freely uttering their shitty opinions about BLM because "Canada doesn't need it, and we're all so post-racial here, yadda yadda yadda."

[Chakab]

10. I'm in Toronto, and I was wondering is this was provoked by the backlash to BLM interrupting Pride.

I generally support BLM, but I didn't think that the Pride protest was appropriate.

However, this stunt was worse and really didn't make any sense.

[Saviolo]

11. It seems unlikely.

The singers were from Vancouver and the event took place in San Diego, so I suspect that the singer was just inspired by recent events all over, and ignorant to the fact that the All Lives Matter slogan really minimizes POC and their struggle to be treated with justice instead of shot by police all the time.

As far as the BLM protest at Pride, I've stated my thoughts already, but to summarize: As a gay man in Toronto, I feel like Pride was started as a political event, and is set at the time of year to commemorate the Stonewall Riots that were the first landmark event in the North American gay civil rights movement. So, to invite a strongly activist group to a political protest event and be surprised that they're activist seems silly to me. The people in that BLM protest were LGBT POC and I think that it was a reasonable protest in the face of recent events like Andrew Loku, Jermaine Carby, Sammy Yatim. They've been begging for public meetings with John Tory and law enforcement for ages.

[jmowreader]

12. I doubt it was ignorance. They get US media in Vancouver

I think he knew EXACTLY what he was doing, and throwing his racist ass out of the band was the right thing to do.

[Saviolo]

13. Hard to say...

I feel like the All Lives Matter people fall into two categories.

The first are the ones that are actively using it to diminish the struggle of POC by removing the "black" from the equation.

The second are the ones who feel like All Lives Matter is a happy, friendly, more inclusive phrase, and really really does include everyone! *sparkles and rainbows* Those people are aware of BLM, but don't understand why they don't feel like ALL lives matter, doesn't that include black people, too? In short, they're twits who don't give it enough thought.

The second seems more likely for Pereira given all of the flat-Earth stuff that's since been turned up on his Facebook page. He seems to be that sort of dippy privileged person who can't figure out why everyone just doesn't have the same -awesome- life he has, they just need to really -believe- in it, y'know?

[tblue37]

2. His being booted from the group has already shown up on the group's Wikipedia page:

They formerly included co-founder Remigio Pereira, but in July 2016, The Tenors announced that Pereira would no longer be performing with the group after he unilaterally altered the lyrics to O Canada at the 2016 MLB All-Star Game to include the phrase "All Lives Matter".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tenors

[chowder66]

3. They were being professional and rightly so....

I just watched the video and he sings the line...solo. They seem to realize he isn't singing the right phrase one/two words in but they can't predict what the next words are going to be. They continue their side of the job and after the performance condemn his actions.

I think this was handled extremely well. They denounced him.

If there is more to this, I'm unaware. I watched the video but haven't seen any time frames or details.

[uhnope]

5. if BLM had called themselves Black Lives Matter Too

I wonder if it would have defused all this BS about their name, a distraction which seems to have just caused more resentment and divisiveness

[rug]

6. They suck. If this were a Three Stooges short they'd get a pie in each face.

[GummyBearz]

8. I just have one question...

Who won the game??

[leftynyc]

9. American League

so they get home field during the world series.