Vanessa Williams, the first Miss America of African descent in the United States, has starred in "Ugly Betty" and "Evaporation Secret Order", and sang the theme song "Colors in the Wind" of "Strange Edge in the Wind", and is a very famous actor + singer in the United States.
Every year on Independence Day (equivalent to National Day), PBS celebrates the departure of a concert program called A Capitol Fourth, which is broadcast on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, as well as on National Public Radio and U.S. Military Internet Radio.
Concerts are usually performed by singers who were popular at the time, and the participants also include the U.S. Third Infantry Regiment, the U.S. Army Presidential Salute Team, the U.S. Army Army Band, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington Choral Arts Association, and so on.
This posture looks like a pop culture + patriotic activity organized by the state, the United States is very good at this, the most popular sports in the United States, when the national football league annual championship, there will be similar large-scale events, singers on the stage enthusiastically singing the national anthem, singing at the end, the American plane above the head roared by.
The show has been on the air for 41 years.
This edition of "A Capitol Fourth" was hosted by Vanessa Williams, who sang the U.S. national anthem, "Star-Spangled Banner," but lift every Voice and Sing.
The song, which is not well known in China, was originally a poem by James Weldon Johnson, which was later adapted by his brother to celebrate Lincoln's birthday in 1905.
James Weldon Johnson was an American writer and civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of People of Color.
The song is called the "Negro National Anthem".
After this incident broke out, it was naturally reprimanded by conservatives for splitting their heads and covering their faces.
Lavin Spicer, the Republican candidate for Florida's 24th Congressional District, tweeted Saturday: "Vanessa, my dear, the negro national anthem is something that only black African nations have, not a country like the United States that exists for everyone."
Conservative writer/editor Cumming Sabbia also tweeted On Saturday: "It's ridiculous, there's no black America, no black anthem, God bless the country, everything that Awakening Culture does is divide us, and I'm not going to watch you create racism." ”
Host and comedian Tim Young said: "It's not unity, it's division, what is the Asian national anthem, what is the Native American anthem, what is the Latino national anthem?" I don't even know what a white national anthem is. ”
TV host Greg Kelly tweeted: "Too bad, different races have their own holidays? Do they still have their own national anthem? New quarantine? ”
Some also expressed support for Vanessa Williams.
Television critic Hal Bodek tweeted: "Some people get into trouble with a hymn written by a Floridian that has resonated for generations and tonight on PBS to hear a great singer perform."
Father Edward Baker tweeted: "This is ridiculous. Unfortunately, we still have to deal with these nonsense. I will listen to two beautiful national anthems. “
There was a tweet refuting what those critics said
Dear racists, Lift Every Voice and Sing was written in 1905, 116 years ago. Some of us choose not to sing the national anthem, and the third verse in it boasts of killing our ancestors
Lift Every Voice and Sing is known as the 'Black National Anthem' and is also the national anthem of our experience/culture for over 100 years. "It has been sung as our national anthem for generations. These remarks are testimony to how badly we have been neglected in this country. ”
The Star-Spangled Banner kills black ancestors in the tweet, primarily this passage from the third verse:
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
They washed their dirty footprints with their own blood.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
Those slaves, those mercenaries, who have no place to hide,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
There is no escape from the fate of failure and death.
The lyricist of the American national anthem was Francis Scott Key, and during the 1812 War, he witnessed the heroic resistance of the American army during the British attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore, and the American flag, the Star-Spangled Banner, which stood still despite being shelled, was deeply moved and inspired, and composed a few poems, which later became the lyrics of the American national anthem
The problem is that this Francis Scott Key once served as the Washington District Attorney, defending slavery during his tenure, and you don't have to say that you can all imagine how angry blacks are at him.
Nation-building issues
More than a decade ago, the history of the founding of the United States was incomparably magnificent and great: a group of Puritans riding the Mayflower came to this land and established the original United States, due to the British forced stamp duty, which led to the revolt of the North American colonies, which believed that "no representatives do not pay taxes", adopted the Declaration of Independence, and began the North American War of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence reads: We believe that the following truths are self-evident: that all men are created equal and that the Creator has endowed them with a number of inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
After that, the United States won the War of Independence, gained independence, and began the glorious history of the United States.
Of course, this was more than a decade ago, and the question is: Who does this "everyone" who is created equal to all refer to? Does that include people of color?
According to the Supreme Court's 1857 case of Scott v. Sanford, the judgment states:
"Can a Negro whose ancestors imported into our country from abroad and who was sold as a slave become a member of the political society which is constituted by the Constitution of the United States and which makes it exist, and is he entitled as a member to all the rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution?"
"We believe that they are not, that they are not included in the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and that the Constitution does not intend to include them, and therefore cannot claim any of the rights and privileges conferred by the Constitution on citizens of the United States." On the contrary, they were considered at the time to be a subordinate, inferior kind of person, subdued by a race that held the right to rule, and who, whether liberated or not, always obeyed the authority of the ruling race, with no rights or privileges other than those which those in charge of power and government were willing to give them. ”
"For more than a century they have been treated as inferiors, who are totally unfit to associate with the white race, whether in social relations or in political relations; because they are inferior, they have no right that the white must respect; and the negroes can be justly and legitimately reduced to slavery in the service of the interests of the whites"
"It is clear that the Declaration of Independence did not intend to include Africans who were slaves, and that there is no place for argument among the people who formulated and adopted it."
Obviously, the Supreme Court held that this person who was "created equal" could not include black people, which was also the trigger for the subsequent Civil War.
In addition to this case, there is Cherokee v. Georgia, the Cherokee people belong to the North American natives, have their own constitutions and laws, have their own factories, and even have their own nationalism, so modernized a nation, in the westward movement, because of the discovery of gold in the area, in 1822 by a paper order from Georgia to deprive them of all rights, forced to embark on the road of blood and tears, the Cherokees who did not want to leave their hometown were imprisoned in concentration camps.
From a black point of view, since "Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem was written by a pro-slavery man, it was only natural that blacks rejected the song.
From the arrival of the Mayflower in North America in 1620, to the affirmative action movement, white people tossed black people for more than 300 years, and this black man had a good life for a few days? So black radicalization, not much of a problem.
This is also the case, more suspicious is the so-called history of the United States, it is generally believed that the Mayflower came to the North American continent, is the beginning of American history, but in 1619, there were the first enslaved Africans arrived in the Colony of Virginia, so the history of the United States should start from 1619, after all, black Americans are also Americans, can not be a big stroke, and expel blacks.
And blacks are more skeptical of all current American history, including but not limited to the Declaration of Independence, the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the American National Anthem, and so on.
Take the American national anthem, for example, which was born in the Anglo-American War of 1812, not the War of Independence, during which 4,000 slaves fled american plantations due to blockades and raids by the British Royal Navy, and took up guns against slave owners under the organization of the British, which was the largest emancipation of black slaves before the American Civil War.
After the war, the Americans tried to reclaim these escaped slaves, but the British refused.
After so many things have happened, and then pushed back to the War of Independence, then what is the nature of the War of Independence?
Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, which was an important reason why Britain refused to return black slaves to the United States, if there was no war of independence in 1776, by the time the British abolished the slave trade in 1807, would the Americans use this as an excuse to carry out the "war of independence"?
Some people think it's a hypothesis, it's not a hypothesis, it's simple: that's one of the reasons why the Mexican-American War and Texas joined the United States later.
Texas was originally Mexican land, when the land was sparsely populated, attracted a large number of Americans to settle here, Americans came to Texas to settle with a large number of slaves, because Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, Texas white slavery worried that if the Mexican government implemented the abolition of slavery here, it would bring them great economic benefits. So a rebellion was launched.
After the Texas slave owners declared independence, they immediately joined the United States, and the Mexican-American War broke out.
At that time, the United States was engaged in the manifest destiny, the Americans were the "chosen people" must expand their territory and power, spread their values, obviously Mexico was the first victim, since the US-Mexico War was triggered by slavery, then what are the American values promoted by the Manifest Destiny?
Isn't it slavery?
This American history book is rewritten.