How many nations are we?

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March 7, 2010

By Hannah Withers, Meridian The Meridian Star The Meridian Star Sun Mar 07, 2010, 04:49 PM CST

MERIDIAN —

    I'm a student at Northwest Middle School and I was ecstatic when entering the auditorium for the black history program and they announced that we would be singing the national anthem.

    I quickly geared up my LONG vowels and stood ready and waiting to sing “Oh Say, Can You See”, when I realized that the music they were playing didn't match up with those historic words written on a boat about bombs bursting in air.

    When the choir started singing I felt my jaw drop to the floor.

    "Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring. Sing with the harmonies of liberty. Let our rejoicing rise, up to the listening skies. Let it resound, loud as the rolling sea," they sang. I had heard it before (sang it before) during the black history program a year before at Magnolia, but as a SONG.

    I was appalled at this. It's a perfectly good song, don't get me wrong. That's not my problem with it.

    My problem is that it's NOT our national anthem. IT'S NOT!

    After the song was over, it was declared to the whole 8th grade class that this was the 'black national anthem'.

    Really? Because I thought this was ONE nation.

    "One nation under God." That's the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance that we have been reciting every day since we were in kindergarten (in some cases longer).

    ONE nation.

    Not a white national anthem. Not a black national anthem. A white nation? A black nation?

    No.

    One nation under God… We live in the United States. Shouldn't we be united?

    I thought all men were created equal. I thought we were bound together with the history of our nation.

    I thought we were the United States of America, one flag, one anthem, one people.

    Am I wrong?

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How many nations are we?

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