Oh, Say Can You Sell CD's!

Rene Marie must think she's quite the clever entrepreneur. But we'll get to that later.

I had never heard of Rene Marie until yesterday. She is a jazz singer from the Denver, Colorado, area. So the Mayor of Denver asked her to sing the national anthem at last Tuesday's State of the City address. When she was introduced and began to sing, the audience certainly recognized the music, but Rene Marie wasn't singing the familiar words to our National Anthem.

It turns out she was singing the words to the "black national anthem," "Lift Every Voice and Sing." My first thought was, "Why do blacks need a national anthem? Is there a United States of Negroes I somehow missed hearing about? And if there is, why is their anthem being sung for an American city ceremony?"

Rene Marie says she meant no disrepect, she only wanted to "express how I feel about living in the United States as a black woman." She says when she visited Russia once, she was asked how it felt to be an American, and she said she didn't feel like she was an American. If that's the case, and she has a problem singing the song that expresses the patriotism every American should feel, then she should have politely declined the invitation to sing.

I'm with Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown who said, "I was mad. I almost walked off the stage. There is no substitute for the National Anthem." Mayor John Hickenlooper, who at first expressed understanding for the incident, now says the city was deceived. Even the NAACP is backing off on this one. Denver branch President Menola Upshaw said, "If she promised to sing it, she should have."

Now we get to the clever part. She is directing the public to her website for her official statement concerning the incident. And included in the statement are instructions on how to order her CD's. She's unpatriotic and deceitful, but she's a darn good marketing expert!