#76

NEW WORDS TO AN OLD SONG

Friday, July 04, 2008

Denver Singer’s Black National Anthem Switcheroo Was a Risky Act for Obama, and Black Americans - Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Heaven only knows what black Denver singer Rose Marie [wrong, Rene Marie] was thinking when she stood at the microphone and belted out the lyrics of the black national anthem instead of the agreed on Star Spangled Banner. The event was Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s [is he related to the chicken coopers?] annual state of the city address and confab. Marie was engaged at no pay [maybe, that's the problem, they should have paid her to sing what they wanted to hear] to sing the customary opening Star Spangled Banner. The black national anthem penned by civil rights legend and songwriter James Weldon Johnson a century ago is a beautiful, lilting, and powerful expression of black pride and dignity. It has been a virtual staple at any and every kind of black gathering down through the years. [Nowhere in the song does it say 'black', 'negro', 'African American', except in the title and the words apply to ALL human beings]. And that’s where it’s appropriate to sing it. The Denver Mayor’s event wasn’t. [That's your opinion, Mr. Hutchinson.]

Marie’s tortured explanation for switching songs is take your pick: it was a matter of artistic expression, her way of showing her pride in being black, a veiled protest against racial mistreatment and discrimination, and her personal statement against the alleged racial hypocrisy of America. [Were these her words or the media's?] Her explanations are facile and self-serving and just about everyone with an opinion on the issue appropriately blasted her and demanded a formal apology which she hasn’t as yet given. She should apologize publicly, and do it now. [Yes, I think she should, right after Euro-Americans apologize for kidnapping, raping, torturing and enslaving millions of her African descendants and stealing this land from her Native American descendants! See: #36 Canada apology]

Her ill-timed, totally inappropriate act has been fodder for speculation [smells funny, is it bullshit?] that it could have a possible backdoor blowback on Obama. [Why is it that any little thing any black person does reflects on the whole race of blacks and any great offense done by a white person doesn't even reflect on him or herself?] Obama immediately rapped Marie for her wrong headed switcheroo, and said that there’s only one national anthem. Obama had to move fast and knock the singer’s act. The Democratic convention will be in Denver in August and Obama can ill-afford to have even the slightest hint that he approves anything that could be construed as an act that disrespects America’s number one, time tested emblematic expression of American patriotism, especially from a black singer. [What does he mean by that!!!] And even more especially given that Colorado with a Democratic controlled legislature, and rising numbers of younger voters and Hispanic voters could be ripe for the picking from the GOP orbit in the fall. [And most of those 'new' voters were recruited by black women, I'm sure.]

[This Negro needs to remember that his mother was a black singer.]

The bigger reason is that Obama more than any other presidential candidate in recent times is hyper sensitive to the patriotism issue. [This is not the fault of Rene Marie or any other black person in this country.] Republican rival John McCain has been scrupulously careful not to stoke any doubt about Obama’s patriotism. But others have. Conservative websites, chat rooms, and some writers have feasted off impugning Obama’s patriotism. They have slandered and ridiculed his name; dumped on his wife Michelle for her off the cuff, repeatedly clarified in context, comment about her lack of pride in America, and the one time absence of an American flag from the lapel in his suits. [If it weren't these issues it would be something else. I'm sure you know that!]

This line of attack can’t be easily shrugged off as a below-the-belt slug by fringe ultra conservatives or professional political hit specialists. Despite his recent slog to the center, even right on some positions, Obama is still widely regarded by moderates and conservatives as a liberal Democrat. As failed liberal Democratic presidential contenders from Michael Dukakis to John Kerry have found out the hard and painful way, they are subject to ruthless, and sustained attack for being too liberal, and allegedly too willing to waffle and compromise on everything from crime and punishment to military preparedness, and especially national security. This always loosely translates out to doubt about the fervor of a liberal Democrat’s patriotism. A prime McCain campaign attack point against Obama is that he can’t be trusted to be the tough guy against foreign enemies and threats. [Has this Negro asked the question: Why do these enemies exist in the first place?]

Conservatives have long since seized the high ground on the issue of what is or isn’t true patriotism and cast themselves as the protectors and defenders of the flag, the national anthem, and their read and interpretation of American traditions against the liberal defilers.

Obama has one more albatross that white liberal Democratic presidential contenders didn’t have. He’s African-American. There’s the inherent suspicion among some that African-Americans are eternal rebels, and chronic social malcontents who undermine conventional American values and traditions. It’s a short step from that false and bigoted notion to see blacks as less patriotic than white Americans. [Good grief! Someone please explain to this Negro that it is pretty difficult to be patriotic toward a country that has it's foot on your neck, your mama's neck, your sistah's neck, your Uncle Tom's neck, etc., etc., etc.!]

Unfortunately this ridiculous tar of Obama as somehow less of a true patriot because of who he is and what his votes and stances on the issues have been is not just a taint [?] him in the minds of some. Those same minds tar blacks with the same, broad unpatriotic brush. Marie was probably oblivious to the implications of her rash act. [I doubt that! I'm sure she put lots of thought into it before she decided to DO it. Not to forget that Harriet Tubman's founding of the Underground Railroad must have been seen as a 'rash' act by scared Negroes, too. But her 'act' did free plenty of black asses, didn't it?] In a follow up remarks, she blithely blew it off as simply being a risky artistic act. It was much more than that. It was a risky act for Obama and African-Americans. [She ain't Obama. She is Rene Marie. If his platform is that weak, that the 'act' of one black woman can bring him down, think of the power that implicates. Not to forget, it will be a black woman that frees this country. Remember you read it here, first. -- WORDS WE SPEAK - Editor: Diva JC]

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Labels: barack obama, black national anthem, john mccain, patriotism, presidential race, rose marie, star spangled banner

Beyond The Word

Inequality, discrimination, and oppression have been oozing sores in the history of civilization. Each of us owes it to ourselves and to society to stop the oozing sores, heal society, and improve the quality of our lives. -- Dr. Priscilla A. Marotta, Power and Wisdom: The New Path for Women [pp 174-175]

Rene Marie

WHY DID YOU AGREE TO SING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM AND THEN NOT SING IT? WASN’T THIS DISHONEST?
I can see how it may be perceived that way. But I looked at it a different way: I am an artist. As such, if I wait until I am asked to express myself artistically, or if I must ask permission to do it, it would never get done. I wanted to tell them what I was going to do, but I couldn’t because I knew the answer would be ‘no’. I knew that, even if I asked to do my version of the national anthem, the answer would be ‘no’. There are times, artistically speaking, when an event chooses us, a door is opened to heal ourselves and others through our artistic expression, so to speak. When that happens we can trust our instincts and walk through it or we can shrink back in fear. It is my firm belief that artists have the responsibility and privilege to walk through that door every single time it opens to them. [BRAVA!]

Rene Marie (Martin, Rose Marie?)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bSbHz_ZQRFc 

Comments from Youtube.com

jibbitz22

fuck her. hang the n!@@$% high. the reason the country is in a pile of shit is because people like this we are to busy trying to please everyone.

NDKasler09 

You done lost your fucking mind. All you black ass fucking niggers will get hung along with osama bama !!!

seIousscout  

I agree, they should have stopped her. One of the color guards should have shot the black bitch in the face. I wonder, how much longer do white Americans have to put up with the indignities, the humiliation, and the racism from these racist niggers and their white Marxist apologists? 

These are the kind of people living in the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' Do these remarks reflect on all the other white people in this country???

Why does it take a black man to chastise Rene Marie for singing different words to a song that has rarely applied to people of his or her hue?

Now, here's the Negro that wrote the column to the left. I found this photo on the site www.myoutspirit.com and I'm wondering is he gay? Is that why he said Obama had to 'knock the singer's act' and Obama cannot afford to have [us believe] that he approves anything. . .construed as. . .disrespect [for] America. . . especially from a black singer? 

Is this Negro a misogynist???

Does he remember that his mother was a black singer, too?

Earl Hutchinson

First, lets think about what makes an issue a “gay and lesbian issue.” To do this, lets look at the different issues that are associated with the black civil rights movement and the LGBT civil rights movement. As Earl Ofari Hutchinson noted in Jesse Jackson Can't Help Obama on www.thenation.com:  “A Democratic presidential contender must not be afraid to dump strategies on the nation's public policy table to combat the astronomically high black unemployment rate, soaring incarceration rate for black men, the HIV/AIDS plague, and failing public schools, as well as a plan for a drug and criminal justice system overhaul. These are the issues that stir the political juices of most blacks.” With the exception of HIV/AIDS, these pressing social issues aren’t issues that many would associate with the LGBT rights movement. There seems to be growing interest in public schools within the LGBT rights movement, but its focused on anti-bullying campaigns and sex/health education, not the achievement gap. (Yes, gays and lesbians may care about many of these issues, but I’ll get to that later. For this point, I’m looking at what is perceived as a gay and lesbian issue.)

One might thus be tempted to posit that a “gay and lesbian” issue is one that affects gays and lesbians specifically. If we take that as a working definition, then we need to think about how an issue can affect gays and lesbians specifically. Does it have to affect all gays and lesbians, a majority of gays and lesbians, or can it just affect a few gays and lesbians? Let’s consider an issue like the “soaring incarceration rate for black men” mentioned by Hutchinson, which would include black gay men. Are those black gay men enough to make the issue also a “gay and lesbian” issue? [Source]

RESPONSES

MORE RESPONSES

Friends express support for jazz singer

Echoing Garrett is Susan Gatschet Reese, a friend and assistant program director at jazz radio station KUVO, who believes Marie meant no disrespect.
 
"She's caring, she's outspoken, she's honest, she cares about the community, and she speaks out on issues that are important to her," says Gatschet Reese.
 
"She's a very warm person," says Norman Provizer, professor of political science at Metropolitan State College and Rocky jazz critic. "People shouldn't get the impression that she's some bitter, hateful, revenge-seeking- through-the-arts kind of person. [HUH!!!] She's quite the opposite."
 
Provizer also says, "I know Rene reasonably well, and I don't think she planned this in order to cause a stir.

AMERICA, WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Good Heavens, Joan!

Thank you for sharing this little snippet and sample of the time and place we are living in!  As The Last Poets famously titled one of their record albums, "This is Madness!"

Your comments on the commentary are right on.  Wisdom has a hard row to hoe in this place, made even harder by the complicity of the media (and all the other conspirators) in perpetuating and sensationalizing everything that contributes to the nation's pathological fears, prejudices and myths.

I dare say that we, as a species (this is the level of analysis we're at now; there is no choice), are only beginning to learn how easily and how deeply programmable the human mind is, especially when it is conditioned by reward and punishment.  The strident hysteria of those white racist comments belies a truly tortured and frightened soul:  How DARE a Black woman question the truth of his universe, defined by the presumption of white supremacy, by offering the unwelcome, arrogant (to his mind, or what's left of it) reminder that there are other truths, like other anthems, equally American, out there.

For her part, Rene Marie spoke a truth that we all know: there are times when neither God nor Ancestors will forgive not stepping up and speaking (or singing) truth.  She was "led by the Spirit" and followed, and I do not doubt that her performance (the quality of  which, most curiously of all, has been lost in all of this mad discussion of irrelevant bullshit) was flawless.

Mr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson, for his part, hustled hard to prove that America's hysterical fears are not limited to Europe's descendants alone.  "I too sing America," he virtually all but bleats to the rabid rabble whose cold prejudicial stares are sure to indict and accuse him of being "one of them" and mark his name on their noose list, if he doesn't dance real quick around this one in public.  Poor devil, he seems not to get it after only 500 years of repeated lessons.  Psychopaths cannot be appeased.  They are not easily healed, true.  Some of our efforts are like throwing water uselessly on a gasoline fire, but it is better than throwing more gasoline as a way not to be perceived as a threat to it.

Rene Marie created what we call a "teachable moment" and a golden opportunity.  A similar one might have come from the singing of a Native American, Mexican American or Chinese American anthem (if such exist) -- true, homegrown expressions of America's blessedly multi-ethnic, multi--cultural soul.  The governor, the media, the audience could have all seized upon this moment with applause and positive "spin."  All the more because it is Denver, where Mr. Obama is to receive his coronation, it could have been the city's and the state's embrace of a new day in America, where all American anthems are music to our ears.

Instead, what do we have?  Supposed shock and outrage, as though the woman had violated someone's mother, or engineered a "wardrobe dysfunction."  This Negro running for his rabbit hole as fast as he can, proclaiming that he's not in it.  Supposed "Americans" with barely enough intelligence to wipe their posteriors [assholes, ya mean?] having time ("The idle mind is the Devil's workshop") to rail and rant against "racist niggers" (the ultimate oxymoron?) who are supposedly insulting them by not following the program that they supposedly have the right to dictate.  A whole whirlwind (tempest in a teapot) of speculation about how this might affect Obama's chances (does this ever end?), all blown up way out of proportion to be something we are supposed to care about.  (Shades of the Britney Spears voyeurism making headlines while immoral wars rage in Iraq and Afghanistan at the behest of "chicken hawks" and their fattened cronies.) What in God's name have we become?  If this stuff is any indication, "hopeless" might be a good answer. 

Ironically, this IS something to care about, but not for the reasons or in the way that these sensationalists are hoping.  It is an exposé of them, and their truly anti-patriotic, unpatriotic attempts to keep the country divided, dumbed-down and weak.  SHAME on them, and kudos to you for helping to expose them.

Stay strong, keep up the good,

DGT

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WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW, what a BOLD, COURAGeOUS move. I personally would not have selected that venue for my artistic expression, but then again My name is Cynthia not Rene Marie. History has proven that such moves are a necessary sacrifice to evoke change. I applaud Rene Marie, as the media make a field day out of it and try to use it to sabotage Obama's campaign.
 
Joan, I truly believe WIJSF is one of God's purpose for you. It's your passion, your baby and should be your main focus. Because of the powerful impact it is destined to make, distractions will come to try and deter you ... don't let it.  Just want you to know you are appreciated for keeping the blueprint and architects of jazz preserved and alive.

CSS

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some bitter, hateful, revenge-seeking- through-the-arts kind of person

Good Lord,

Are there many of them on the planet?

I certainly hope not, since most spiritual messages come from artists, particularly those that fall into the category of avant garde for necessary change!

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Of course, we all know that club owners are NOT MUSICIANS, not most of them, at any rate. Did anyone tell the ones who are not that all STANDARDS used to be someone's original music????? I am laughing out loud, here!!!

Good grief. Being a musician on this planet is terrifically difficult, especially when you are dealing with left-brainers.