Embarrassing the race

Did you hear about what happened in Denver yesterday?

The mayor was getting ready to present his “State of the City” address. But first... jazz singer Rene Marie was given the honor of singing the National Anthem.

Rene Marie decided to do something different.

To the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” she sang “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” also known as the “Negro National Anthem.” (Her performance is embedded below.) This has caused a scandal.

She later explained: “What was going on in my head was, I wanted to express how I feel about living in the United States as a black woman, as a black person.”

Uhh... okay. Except that nobody gives a fuck about your feelings, Miss Thang! This was about honoring your country. You had a job to do, and you screwed it up. Plain and simple.

One irony is that this happened at the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building... named after the black man who served as Denver’s mayor for 12 years.

Another irony is that Denver is where Barack Obama next month will accept his party’s nomination for President of the United States.

So what the hell was Rene Marie protesting?

(Note to my boy DeAngelo Starnes: Denver’s your city, bruh, so I’m asking you... Was this a “bonehead” move? Or did she do the right thing?)

You can see Rene Marie’s explanation – along with Mayor John Hickenlooper’s reaction to it all – by following this link.

Right-wing blog reaction, of course, has been hot ’n’ heavy. One of Lawrence Auster’s commenters wrote: “I’d like to play ‘Dixie’ on a continuous loop outside that uppity female’s house.”

Mr. Auster himself declared: “[B]lacks just can’t help asserting their blackness in public settings that are supposed to be non-racial, because that is what the entire black culture (e.g., Trinity United Church of Christ) is constantly telling them to do.

“And the more they do it, the more they lose any moral claim on white America’s respect, concern, solicitude, or guilt.”

One of Michelle Malkin’s readers put it just about right: “Selfish, self centered, ungrateful. You may call it art, I call it a slap in the face of good old Uncle Sam. Shame on you.”