Some Native Americans took issue with pop star Jennifer Lopez performing the song “This Land is Your Land” at Joe Biden’s Inauguration on Wednesday, one saying “I love J.Lo — it wasn’t super disappointing that she sang it, but I was like, ‘Oh, why did that have to be on the list of things to sing?'” said Kristen Herring.
“It’s a nice little sentiment that America is this mixing pot,” said Benny Wayne Sully, according to the Associated Press. “But does anybody believe this land was made for you and me? Or was it made for white folks? People forget this land was made of brown people before it was colonized.”
“This Land is Your Land” was written by Woody Guthrie in the 1951 as a direct rebuke to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” and as a protest against what he saw as Berlin’s “glorification” of America, notes Breitbart News’ John Nolte.
Jennifer Lopez performed the song at Biden’s inaugural celebration, where she also delivered a rendition of “America the Beautiful” into which she injected a line of Spanish, screaming “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Lady Gaga also sang a rendition of “This Land is Your Land” during her performance at the Super Bowl LI halftime show in 2017, weeks after then-President Donald Trump was sworn into office.
“In order to make it work, ‘this land is your land, this land is my land,’ people [need] to understand it doesn’t belong to us,” said Tebo in reaction to Lopez’ performance on Wednesday. “If anything, we belong to it. And when our land is sick, we are sick.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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