Anti-American protests have now spread to the NBA, as a singer performing the national anthem suddenly took a knee as she sang at the start of a Sacramento Kings game.
Singer Leah Tysse, a resident of Berkeley, California, later took to her Facebook page to explain why she joined the anti-American protests started by San Francisco 49ers NFL player Colin Kaepernick.
“I love and honor my country as deeply as anyone,” Tysse said on Facebook, “yet it is my responsibility as an American to speak up against injustice as it affects my fellow Americans.”
Tysse went on to criticize America’s police for unjust treatment of minorities.
But the folks who helped get her the gig as the game’s anthem singer are not amused. Sonia Susac, a member from the Albie Aware Breast Cancer survivors group that attended the game to highlight breast cancer awareness, called Tysse’s sudden anthem protest a “distraction” from the real reason she was there: to sing the national anthem.
“She took something away from us that night,” Susac told Sacramento’s CBS affiliate.
Tysse, who revealed recently that she has breast cancer, was supposed to be at the Kings game to highlight the disease. But now, all people are talking about is the singer’s anti-American protest.
Susac went on to say she was upset about the singer’s protest and noted, “To have today be about a political statement is infuriating to me.”
“I had no idea she was going to do that, no idea,” Susac added. “And she’s gifted with a beautiful voice, but she should stick to singing.”
The singer, however, is adamant that she did the right thing. Speaking in generalities and giving no specific facts, in her Facebook post, Tysse said she “cannot idly stand by as black people are unlawfully profiled,” and she went on to condemn what she called “white privilege.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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