Thanks for the thorough recap. Yesterday my sister hosted a BBQ for my family and my brother-in-law's family. As you know, Maria, that means it was a racially diverse crowd. My sister's sister-in-law asked if we had heard about this. The rest of us hadn't. Using my handy iPhone I looked up some news on it and found video on YouTube.

Refuting one commenter above: None of us in the room, black or white, were familiar with Lift Ev'ry Voice. (And my bro-in-law's mom was there, so an older generation was represented.)

I found only a couple of news stories on it yesterday, one of which had a quote from the singer saying she had pulled a "switcherooni" on the mayor's office, so our consensus was there was something purposeful and disingenuous about her behavior which we thought we wouldn't appreciate if we'd been the ones to hire her! So, if that quote from her is accurate, I doubt she had racial healing in mind.

Seems like some people quoted above want to have it both ways: honor the fact that she was intending to engage in provocative protest, then be outraged when people respond to the provocation.

But I also just cannot stand that this is the kind of thing that we're all talking about and that it is immediately Obama's problem. Seriously: the Denver State of the City speech is not exactly newsworthy to those outside a 20 mile radius. Folks in Obama's campaign must just be throwing up their hands in aggravation. I would be.

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Was referring to some of the others above. I mean there's a bit of "What would people done if she had done xxx?", but she didn't, she did something she herself, supposedly, admitted was done to provoke.

And I have to say: I am also surprised my sis's MIL didn't know it, because she is an avid churchgoer. So there are two possibilities. I do not know her entire life story well, but it is possible, from what I do know, that she came to her conversion somewhat late in life, indicating that perhaps the song is no longer as popular/well-known in church life as it may have once been. Second possibility: We were discussing and trying to watch/listen in a house full of kids playing Rock Band and other brouhaha, so perhaps the truth is she didn't *hear* it well and was as vain about her hearing as everyone else in my family :)

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I consider myself to be a creative person who gets the whole "artist" making a statement thing; however, this is what I have to say about this matter:  It was an official city function.  She was asked to sing The National Anthem.  She should've sung the National Anthem in both word and melody.

I was raised singing "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" at certain events.  (I come from the kind of family that required me to memorize all of another of James Weldon Johnson's works, The Creation, and recite it for a special program.  You could be as educated as you dare in my family but if you didn't know anything about black history you were a waste of good brain power.) The words to "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" are beautiful and here's a link with the song's true melody sung by a children's choir.

If nothing else, Obama's run for the presidency is showing America how little some people in the majority population know about African-American history and culture.  Increasingly this is true for even some black folk.  We live in a country that cannibalizes black culture and then spits it out  supposedly "purified" for the masses while repeatedly disdaining the source.

Nevertheless, while I think I know what Rene Marie wanted to convey, a melding of cultures, I think she should've gone about delivering her message differently.

What's funny is that even the Star Spangled Banner is not loved as a song itself by everyone.  It's hard to sing.  Every now and then a debate arises that the song should be replaced by "America the Beautiful."  But you know that won't happen.  "America the Beautiful" has the word "god" in it.  As pretty a song as ATB is, it's got a Christian Fascism vibe going on, not a good thing if you want to keep "separation of church and state" alive.

And as long as we're discussing our beloved national anthem, we might as well recall that it is also a song tied to war. Tres American.

Nordette is a Contrubuting Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog on another site is at this link.

I feel so handicapped from my legal education! I looked at this first as a contract issue! lol Then, I thought about the debates people are having over whether the Olympic athletes should be allowed to use the podium, if they win, as a place for protest (honestly, since we know this will NEVER happen, if it was me on that Olympic podium in China, you bet I'd find a way to protest, but, we know, I wouldn't go to China for the Olympics in the first place lol).

Back on topic - I don't think what Rene Marie did was unpatriotic, at all.  I do think it wasn't nice or fair to the people who hired her and I also think it kind of didn't do what maybe someone would want an act like that to do since people didn't know the words etc.

Remember the Sinead O'Connor thing on Saturday Night Live - where she ripped a picture of the Pope, right?  I'm not Catholic, so it looked kind of radical, but I wasn't offended.  And for sure Lorne Michaels didn't expect that - but O'Connor had the reputation of doing things like that - so I doubt they were surprised.

Does Rene Marie have a habit of doing this kind of thing? I mean, she's kind of cut her nose to spite her face now, a little, yes? Because who will bring her on if they are concerned they won't do what she's been hired to do?

I agree 100% - Obama has no connection to this any more than any of us.  That's just silly.  But I'm not surprised people ask for his opinion - I think that's to be expected, whether it's right or wrong.

Finally, you know what reading your comments made me think of!?  Are there occasions when we should allow for more than one anthem to be presented?  For example, in our synagogue, we sing the Star Bangled Banner AND the Israel national anthem (HaTikvah) during certain events (i was at a concert with secular Israeli performers and this was done, and I was at an event for the Israeli Defense Forces and a woman I know sang both anthems).

So maybe this would be like inserting HaTikvah into the Star Spangled Banner's theme?  I think a lot of Americans would have a real problem with that! lol

So - I don't know.  It gets to be a slippery slope. But it did occur to me that maybe having both presented or sung by the same performer would be a solution in some cases?  Unless its pure protest by Rene Marie -then that's not a solution.

I also want to add that if the goal of her protest was to expose more people to this song and history, my first instinct is to think: aren't there more productive ways of doing that? Provocation for provocation's sake rubs me the wrong way - it seems self-serving. Not that I don't engage in it ever, but it's never my first choice for how to engage and possibly persuade.  There are more positive ways, I hope and believe, to spread messages and make people aware than breaking a contract. 

Thanks for writing about this.

JillWrites Like She Talks

Venomous Kate said, "Under Marie’s own reasoning, would it still be “art” if, say, some good ol’ boy bluegrass singer in Mississippi decided to sing “Dixie” at the start of a city government meeting?"

I'm a fan of Rene Marie and know that early in her career she sang Dixie herself in her concerts. When she first began to do it, people (black people) got up and walked out. But they eventually started to listen to the way she sang it and the message she was trying to convey, and stayed.

Art has purpose and meaning. Listen to that.

http://www.webteacher.ws/ http://first50.wordpress.com/

If nothing else, Obama's run for the presidency is showing America how little some people in the majority population know about African-American history and culture.  Increasingly this is true for even some black folk.  We live in a country that cannibalizes black culture and then spits it out  supposedly "purified" for the masses while repeatedly disdaining the source.

I think this is important enough to repeat, Nordette! If because of this story more people now are aware of the song, and have heard the words at least, then this protest is a good thing IMO. Maybe a rapper will now sample it and export it worldwide...

Thank you so much for that link and bit of education, Virginia.

On another note, I am waiting for some new media wizard to start a web site where folks can submit their grievances regarding stuff other Black folks--living and deceased--have done that they want Obama to respond to, reject, or renounce. Maybe a new holiday could even be started, with this at its core--a sort of "Festivus"-like celebration. (Barackivus?) LOL

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I think there is a time and a place for protests and art.  In my opinion the singing of the National Athem is an honor and should never be used as a political soapbox. This sadly reminds me of Roseann Barr's horrible rendition, I'm sure she thought she was making a statement too.  

We all want to live in a nation where the words of our anthem speak to all hearts,  I can see where some might not feel the reverance I feel for it.  But I don't think this was appropriate on the performer's part.  

Of course from an artistic viewpoint, she has people engaged in dialogue.  And isn't that what you want art to do?  I just can't help but think that the dialogue could have been constructed in a less inflammatory way, keeping in mind the audience and their rights to receive respect from the performer.   

I agree with an earlier poster in that it is ridiculous to drag Obama into every discussion to do with race or the actions of an individual who happens to be black.  Just as (Thank GOD!) McCain doesn't speak for all white Americans, Obama can't possibly speak for all black Americans.  Where was McCain's grilling on the subject?  Race relations is something WE ALL NEED TO DISCUSS.  The old white guys need to be brought into the discussion more than anyone, don't you think? 

I think "they" should ask McCain, because he is white, to renounce or explain Roseanne Barr's controversial National Anthem of 1990.

That is just as silly as asking Obama for his reaction to Rene Marie.

I guess my reaction would have been puzzlement. I would not have known the words; and since Ms Marie didn't preface them with any explanation, I would have had no idea what the heck was going on or why. So it might have been better protest art if more people knew what she was doing.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Back at my sister's house last night, and we continued to discuss this.

Along the lines of Obama being held responsible for every black person's actions, my bro-in-law was joking that he didn't want there to be a black president at all, because every time the person did anything everyone would be "in his office" asking him to explain it and justify it.

At least I hope he was joking ;)

On a less amusing note, I have to say he was somewhat insulted by the implication that if he didn't know this song he was somehow lacking in something...whether you want to call it culture, black pride, sense of history.

However: the evening ended with my 6 year old and 3 year old nephews shouting "Go Barack Obama" (although for the three year old it was more like "Gobama") so rest assured a good time was had by all!

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I've never heard of the song she substituted, and now I have. I feel bad Obama had to comment on it, because I think that's ridiculous. Just because he has a black parent doesn't mean he is the foremost authority on all things black, nor should he be. No one person should have to speak for an entire race of people. That's one of the most annoying things to me going on in this election. Hillary didn't represent all women, she represented one capable woman with her own unique sets of strengths and weaknesses. Barack Obama doesn't represent all people with black parents, with black and white parents or any other combination of races, he is one capable man with his own unique sets of strengths and weaknesses.

Barack the candidate is symbolic, but Barack the man is just a guy doing his best to win the presidency. Yes, we should celebrate the fact that a man who is not an old white guy in a red tie is the Democratic candidate for president, absolutely, but we should not expect him to speak on behalf of an entire people. Any time we ask one individual to speak on behalf of an entire people, we get ourselves into trouble. Everyone is unique. Everyone brings their own set of baggage and history to the table. It's not fair to ask one to speak for all, ever.

However, I'm glad I've learned about this song, which I think is a really important song, and it is really unfortunate how little my generation and the generation after mine knows about America's past and the past treatment of black people and Native Americans in this country. I personally blame what I was taught in school -- since high school I have learned more on my own, but we really glazed over what happened in school, and it's a travesty.

Learning about slavery is hard for everyone. It's hard to look at your classmates or friends and really understand what happened in this country in our past. It's hard whether you are black or white, because none of us checks a box before birth and chooses what race we will be born. We are born into our race, into our country, and we must look at where we've ended up and figure out how we can leave it better off than we discovered it.

I know I personally find it very, very hard to learn more about slavery and the Jim Crow era that followed it. But learn we must, lest we repeat the mistakes of the past. We must not hide from the ugliness, lest we become that ugly ever again. So I think this artist achieved her goal -- she brought attention to a song and an era that is fading with every new generation. The bright side: Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for president. The down side: I didn't know this song.

How do you heal and not forget at the same time?

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Rita Arens is a contributing editor for BlogHer -- Mommy & Family.

Whether her singing this was her form of Art or a protest or what not, she was HIRED to sing the National Anthem.  The last time I checked the National Anthem of the United States is The Star Spangled Banner.  She was wrong to sing anything else. 

Asking Obama has no reasoning, except that because of this the "other side" will use it to their advantage.  Watch Faux news tonight and bet me they won't pull this up saying he (read Barack) is trying to make this a Black National Anthem.  That if he is voted in this will become our National Anthem.   

I also don't agree with refering to the song as the Black National Anthem.  A National Anthem represents an entire nation not just a group of people.  The Star Spangled Banner represents everyone and is an ode to our beloved flag. 

This is my conservative side of my liberalness coming out.  But when it comes to the flag and the National Anthem it gets my rankles up.  I'm the crab at the baseball game giving dirty looks to the people talking or wearing their hats.  It's called respect dammit, give some.

...and, BTW, incredibly patriotic as well...

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered;
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Hoping an educator can weigh in.

I agree with what Nordette wrote here:

I doubt that we will heal anytime soon, however, if people gloss over
history and behave as though black people exist in America via some
type of ahistoric vacuum.

I felt that what I was taught was "oh, some bad stuff happened, but that was a long time ago and everyone thought it was normal then." I can't picture my high school textbook very well, but I don't remember being properly horrified until much later, doing my own reading. Reading about families being torn apart, men and women being humiliated and beaten for no apparent reason, being shackled in boats and sold in public auction. Unless we face that, we can't face our human capacity for misery and for the love of power. We as a human race are capable of horrible acts. We have to be aware of that in order to keep our leaders and even our own behavior in check. Power does strange things to some people, and this is important to realize. Our country has checks and balances for a reason, and even we let things go too far because a powerful group of people wanted things a certain way a long time ago. And that way was so wrong it will take us generations to heal.

I don't remember really understanding how black Americans were treated under slavery, and even, as Nordette noted, MUCH LONGER afterward. It went from outright physical abuse to mental and emotional abuse, but abuse is abuse, and in a country where we proclaim we are created equal, it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but what a wrong message to send. The excuse "things were different then" is never an excuse. Not for racism, not for sexism, not for any sort of unfair or inhumane treatment. It's an easy out, and we can't let ourselves go down that slippery slope, because the end result is excusing abhorrent behavior under cultural context. Humans are human, and moral is moral.

What is taught today? Are we facing the past, not just in regard to African-Americans but also to Native Americans? Whites behaved abominably to both of these groups in the past. There's a difference between making people pay in the here and now and all looking together at past injustices and vowing to work together to make sure they never happen again. We know they are happening elsewhere in the world - how can we work together in this country to stop it? And what do we teach our kids to make sure they never gloss over the past because it hurts to think about it?

In order to commit abominable acts, you have to convince yourself it's no big deal. So no, I don't think we should gloss over anything that happened in our country's past. I don't think we should let it turn today's blacks and whites against each other, but we shouldn't gloss over it. We need to link arms and read that history together, and teach our kids to love each other, leading by example.

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Rita Arens is a contributing editor for BlogHer -- Mommy & Family.

I just hopped over and read Leslie's post.  I realize this conversation is now veering from The Star-Spangled Banner, and I apologize, Maria, but I think it's a good conversation.

Silly me, I assumed students were now reading Langston Hughes and Malcolm X.  I hoped things have changed.

Seriously, is it not 2008?  Afrocentric?  Seriously? It's the melting pot, for God's sake. We should be presenting the history of every group that lives in America, not just Europeans.  Whites won't even be the majority in this country soon if population rates stay on the same trajectory they are now. 

When are we going to wise up? 

Surrender, Dorothy - When I was your age, we just let them ride in the back window.

Rita Arens is a contributing editor for BlogHer -- Mommy & Family.

First, Kudos to Maria for sharing this post as well as to everyone who has thoughtlully and eloquently shared their thoughts.

The feedback that this incident has solicited has been amazing.

My first impressions of the incident were:

1. Renee Marie forget the lyrics to the National Anthem and after beginning "Lift Every Voice and Sing' just kept going. I've seen other singers confuse "God Bless America" with "The Star Spangled Banner".

OR

2. She picked the wrong time and place to make either an artistic or social/political statement.

After reading Virginia Debolt's comment on how Renee has been known to sing Dixie at her concerts, I'm leaning to the latter assessment.

However, timing and location are everything. To sing "Lift Every Voice & Sing" as the National Anthem in a concert setting is an artistic statement. To substitute one song for the other at a political rally is an obvious political statement. But to intentionally substitute "Lift Every Voice & Sing" after being contracted to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" at a city's public event is a questionable call at best and playing into racial anxieties at worst.

As far as Barack Obama being asked to comment on Ms. Marie's decision, it's expected in our current political climate but obviously a little silly. Maybe one day our society will reach a point when every Black person is not accountable for the individual choices of every other.

Pamela Lyn

I did know the song (although not all the lyrics) and that it was important to the civil rights movement. My mother was raised in SW Georgia during the end of segregation- she lived down the road from Koinonia, the precursor to Habitat for Humanity, which was an interracial community often attacked. These events shaped her childhood and early adulthood very strongly, so I was taught from an early age about the civil rights movement and to not accept racial discrimination or hatred in any form.

So. I guess if I had heard Renee Marie had sung "Lift Ev'ry Voice", in it's regular melody, instead of the Star Spangled Banner- I would have thought, OK, she was making a statement. And I'm no "Star Spangled Banner" lover, even being from Baltimore and an Army Brat. I just don't get her message. She fit "Lift Ev'ry Voice" to the "Star Spangled Banner" which was fit to a British drinking song. And Dixie? Well, better she sing it than some people, I guess. But I guess I don't get why she would sing it. 

Interesting that so many people are apparently up-at-arms because she veered away from "what she was hired to do." I don't see that any harm was done and I admire her action.

I don't know if this was the best forum for her to make her statement or not, but I'm not certainly willing to dismiss it just because she didn't do what she was hired to do. But maybe such an impulse makes sense to me because I'm an artist with an affinity for political art.

I wonder how many people would've paid much attention at all if she'd sang the song as intended. How many people would have thought twice about what the words that she replaced actually mean?

To me, this brings up questions of patriotism and purpose. What is the point of the Star Spangled Banner, anyway? Are people inspired by the lyrics (an account of battle), or is it really the melody that captures them? Along those lines, I find it to be a savvy and timely reapproriation of material - a melody that commands the attention and respect of the nation coupled with lyrics that actually describe the ideals of the nation more poingantly (I think) than a surviving flag metaphor battle song (which is admittedly powerful). What does it mean to honor the format, meaning and history of one song over the other? What are we as a nation so attached to? To me these questions are more important than one more performance of the designated national anthem.

The words of Lift E'vry Voice and Sing do no less to honor the state or its citizens than the Star Spangled Banner - it is no less patriotic. I don't think any harm was done there. It was a violation of expectation to be sure, but it appears to me that she has done more good than harm by catalyzing this conversation. Art shouldn't be about try to be provacative while sitting inside a clearly defined box of pre-determined "appropriate" boundaries. Of fcourse boundaries are important and necessary, but in this case - I don't see any harm done. If I had to choose between a forum of expression such as the State of the City and self-publishing on YouTube, I'd pick the former (esp. since in the end, she ended up with both). At least, I'd like to think I would. If I didn't choose it, as an artist, I think I might regret it.

I think her performance had a lot of value.  

Assumptions, Biases & Irrational Fantasies