Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Singer Replaces the National Anthem with Black Anthem

In Denver today jazz singer Rene Marie scheduled to sing the star spangled banner at the State of the City instead sang the words to the black national anthem (Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing). In the face of outrage from city government and conservative commentators, when asked why she did it, she replied "i want to express how i feel about living in the united states."

Get it girl... LOL....

Republican Senator McCain is demanding that Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator Barack Obama ask General Wesley Clark to step down (ugh I hate that the only links I can find today are from fox news!).

What perplexes me is how McCain can possibly think he has the right to ask anyone from the Obama campaign to step down.

"Charles Black Jr., one of McCain's most senior political advisers, said in an interview with Fortune Magazine, that a fresh terrorist attack 'certainly would be a big advantage to him.' He also said that the December assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazie Bhutto, while 'unfortunate," helped McCain win the Republican primary by focusing attention on national security'" - Washington Post

Last week McCain surrogate "termed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee 'John Kerry with a tan.'"

Both are still working for the McCain campaign.

And yet General Clark's comment that McCain's military service cannot and should not be the sole measure of whether or not he is fit to be President of the United States is worth him being fired from the Obama campaign? Come on now...

What's interesting about both of these incidents is the way in which conservative commentators have been so quick to use these as examples of black America's "lack of patriotism." Both Obama and his wife have been asked to prove their patriotism (read: white Americaness), after Senator Obama has been and continues to be painted as "foreign" or "unamerican" by the media.

In the face of the American public patting itself on its back for its "racial progress" in the light of Obama's nomination. The way in which black Americans still must prove their Americaness before being fully accepted by both the media and the general public, continues to call whatever progress has been made into question.

peace.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Get it girl???
Not the time or place.

Sen. Barack Obama said today a jazz singer’s decision to sing the ‘Black National Anthem’ at Denver’s State of the City speech this week was wrong.

“Well, ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing’ is a beautiful song that has been sung in African-American churches and other events for a very long time,” Obama told the Rocky in phone interview. “We only have one National Anthem. And so, if she was asked to sing the National Anthem, she should have sung that. ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing’ is a beautiful song, but we only have one National Anthem.”

Obama’s comments came as the controversy over Rene Marie’s rendition entered its third day.

Dumi said...

I see you SSS. I like the style, keep it coming.