Denver?!

I've never visited, but nothing I've heard about Denver makes it sound terribly...diverse.

I mean...wouldn't Birmingham, or Los Angeles or Chicago have been more, y'know, relevant?

I will level with you:  Being a cracker, I had never heard of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," much less heard the lyrics.  In case any of you are as hopelessly ofay as me, here they are:

Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
'Til 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 'til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning 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,
'Til 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 has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has 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.

So that's the "Black National Anthem."  I get the allusions to slavery and all, but why are these verses considered blacks-only?  It's a beautiful poem/tribute to what's conventionally thought of as the "American spirit."

Nevertheless, if the lady agreed to be paid for singing the national anthem, she shoulda sung the national anthem.

Taint wrote:

That's really what it comes down to: she knew full-well which song she had been asked to sing. It was arrogant to do otherwise. As for the song, it really is lovely and I can't imagine anyone being offended by it under any other circumstances.

That's my problem with it.  She was paid to perform a particular song not to make a personal political statement.

Taint wrote:

As for the song, it really is lovely and I can't imagine anyone being offended by it under any other circumstances.

O yee of little faith.

The back of the bus. Was it really so bad?

But of course this is all Obama's fault,

I thought "Baby Got Back" was the Black National Anthem...

I've been looking for hours and I can't find the nation of Black on a map.  What gives?

That kind of reminds me of a pet peeve from a company I used to work for.  They had an awesome event that they did every year.  Anyone could form a group representing a country, and they would get $1000 to create a booth for one day and there was a big International festival.  The highlight was mostly the food from around the world, but they also had performances on stage.  I was an honorary Korean one year, and if you've ever seen me, that was a bit of a stretch, but they needed some extra hands and it was fun.

Every year they have an Africa booth which naturally becomes the black people booth.  I wouldn't even think that was so weird if it had sections for different African nations, or even if it was an African-American booth, with the history, food, and culture of American black people, but instead it was primarily taken up with African-style things that someone was selling from the shop they owned, and there were a couple of people who would hound the black people that worked there to help out at the booth.

There is no country of Black and no country of Africa.  That's totally fine.  There are plenty of other things to be proud of.