7/2/2008: update at the bottom…

Ok, we’ve apparently hit a running stride in the race of “let’s put Denver in the news for all the wrong reasons”. First it was Hick being funny and not so funny… ^[1]and now it’s someone getting all racial up in my city. By golly I do believe I’m offended. Or bothered. Or like Hick, “disappointed.” This is the kind of stuff that boggles my mind.

We as a country strive for racial equality. I personally don’t think of people as “Black” or “African American”. Got citizenship? You are an American. The color of this country runs all along the spectrum…but some people are not all the way on that bandwagon. See the stories below with the links for the fun. Seriously…can we for once move beyond being racial and dividing ourselves according to color?

9News.com ^[2] says, “stirs controversy”. I say something else.

Instead, she performed the song “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” which is also known as the “black national anthem.” When she finished, the audience responded with mild applause. The national anthem was never performed.

Marie told 9NEWS she kept her plans to switch songs quiet until the very last moment. She says only she, her husband and a friend knew she was going to sing something other than the “Star-Spangled Banner.” She says she wanted to express her love of her country by mixing the lyrics of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” with the melody of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” “When I decided to sing my version, what was going on in my head was: ‘I want to express how I feel about living in the United States, as a black woman, as a black person,’” said Marie.

But was that what you were asked to do? I do not believe so, but then again I’m a white person living in the United States. Does it make it bad that I am criticizing this action? Does it make me racial first? How do we define the pulling of said, “Racial Card”? How does this whole racial conversation of who did what go anyway? Does the Geneva Convention cover this? Seriously. This is what our city gets covered for. Wonderful.

Michelle Malkin ^[3] covers it while Slapstick Politics ^[4]brings the latest news to the story.

Here’s my thing. There’s a time and place to make your point, whatever it was originally. This was not that time. Maybe you accomplished getting your name and face on the blogs, news stations and all that…and maybe that was your point. I don’t know. All I know is this kind of thing doesn’t help us move forward on Racial Issues…it just mucks up the thing even more.

You know the drill kids. Let’s talk it out in comments.

7/2/2008 11:22am:  Ed Morrissay over at Hotair.com points out ^[5]some possible future events coming down the pike and echoes what I was thinking this morning…

In addressing the media, Marie displayed the self-centeredness of people who hijack events for their own aggrandizement.  “When I decided to sing my version, what was going on in my head was: ‘I want to express how I feel about living in the United States, as a black woman, as a black person,” she explained.  However, the event wasn’t staged to give Marie a platform for her political views; it was an official speech by the Mayor to communicate the status of city government to its citizens.

Unfortunately, Denver had better get used to this kind of It’s all about how I feel as a [blank] thought process over the next two months.

As I thought more and more last night and into this morning I realized what she had done hadn’t been for the “Black” community or even for anybody else.  It was just for her in that moment to celebrate herself.  Now was that her conscious intent?  Probably not, but it came across that way to many in the city of Denver.  If she’s smart, she’ll apologize and do that whole, “oops” thing.  If she’s going to fight this, she’s going to lose.  There are still a good group of people in Denver, and the United States who believe that the National Anthem is just that.  THE National Anthem.

There are some things that make us all citizens of these United States.  And no separate anthem does that.