My First Occupation/RIP Whitney Houston/One of the Worst Moments in Our History — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

 

 

Here is one of the worst moments in our country’s history: The 1991 Super Bowl National Anthem sung by Whitney Houston, who just died. A good singer and a good song.

But when this song was sung, twenty-one years ago, I was at my first occupation. The Gulf War had started days earlier, for no good reason. Though it was the most protested war in history, the media blackout said that there were no protests against it anywhere.

When war broke out, fifty of us activists without planning spontaneously put up our tents under the historic arch at the entrance to the University of Georgia in Athens.

We were threatened by soldiers from the School of the Americas. We were threatened by the Ku Klux Klan. We were threatened by frat boys, who fired a bottle rocket into one of the tents, and set one on fire.

My tent under that arch was the first place I ever lived whereat I had to talk to the town’s police chief every day.

The rednecks wanted us out, but the professors were on our side. So were the two most prominent politicians in Georgia: Ex-President Jimmy Carter and Senator Sam Nunn, both staunch opponents of the Gulf War.

We held an anti-war rally one day, and thousands of people came to march with us. But the news reported that it was a pro-war rally. They showed a photo of four people standing around a storefront, and said that was the rally.

Every day in Georgia, Governor Zell Miller would go on TV giving the State of the State Message, standing in front of the Hate Flag State Flag, which you’ll see 32 seconds into this video.

At a televised basketball game that weekend, protesters in Idaho were pelted with potatoes by faux-patriotic spectators, as the broadcaster loudly lamented the Fascist intimidation. It was in this atmosphere that Whitney Houston chose to sing The Star-Spangled Banner.

The George H.W. Bush Administration no doubt hoped that by having a Black singer at the Propaganda Bowl, Americans would be inspired at the sight of a minority person who had risen to such a pinnacle that she could now be used to trick other people into killing Arabs to profit Oil companies.

Disgraceful and disgusting. But a good singer and a good song. I’m sad she died.