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Pop singer Beyonce Knowles performs scantily-clad dance on tomb of President Ulysses S Grant
BBC News/Entertainment On Line ^ | Monday, 14 July | staff writer

Posted on 07/14/2003 7:32:25 AM PDT by yankeedame

Last Updated: Monday, 14 July, 2003, 08:46 GMT 09:46 UK

Beyonce's 'grave dance' causes grief


Beyonce took part in the annual Macy's Fourth of July celebrations

Pop singer Beyonce Knowles should not have been allowed to perform a scantily-clad dance on the tomb of former United States President Ulysses S Grant, a historical group has said. The star danced in a "patently inappropriate" way on the steps to the tomb during a nationally-televised 4 July concert, according to Frank Scaturro, president of the Grant Monument Association.

The Destiny's Child chart-topper used "lascivious choreography" and her backing dancers were barely dressed, Mr Scaturro said in a letter to NBC, which filmed the performance.

Her latest single, Crazy In Love, is currently number one in the UK and US.

A certain decorum should have been observed from which popular entertainers are not exempt

Frank Scaturro Grant Monument Association And her album held onto the top spot in the UK on Sunday but was knocked off the summit in the US by Ashanti last week.

In his letter, Mr Scaturro wrote: "At that location, a certain decorum should have been observed from which popular entertainers are not exempt."

The letter also went to the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, and National Park Service director Fran Mainella.

Watch Beyonce perform Crazy In Love on Top of the Pops Ulysses S Grant was a Civil War hero who became the 18th president, between 1869-77.

His tomb, erected as a national monument in 1897, is in New York. The concert was part of the annual Macy's Fourth of July celebrations.

Also performing were American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson plus Sheryl Crow and John Mellencamp.

'More thoughtful'

Ulysses Grant Dietz, the great-great-grandson of Ulysses S Grant, said he did not object to most live performances, as long as the tomb was looked after.

But organisers could have been more thoughtful, he added.

"If they're doing a Fourth of July celebration and they're doing it at a grave of a president, maybe they should look a little more closely at what the performances are."

NBC and Beyonce were not available for comment and a National Park Service spokesman did not want to comment because he had not seen the letter.


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
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To: Im Your Huckleberry
The behavior of the performer is in question; not Grant, his personality, his presidency, nor his leadership. We have debated Grant's deficiencies on many other FR threads.
121 posted on 07/14/2003 12:25:51 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: Im Your Huckleberry
You're beginning to sound MORE AND MORE like a liberal...just because I referred to your hero (in a humorous vein, no less) as a "Drunken General" you now have me whipping slaves on the plantation. You should really hear what you sound like--a bit hysterical actually.

Lighten the ef up, will ya?

And if I WERE a Southerner and thought for a MINUTE all Yankees were as obnoxious as you, I would NEVER go north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

122 posted on 07/14/2003 12:26:09 PM PDT by Pharmboy (Dems lie 'cause they have to...)
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To: cyborg
I was surprised that "colored" went out of style. I always thought it had pinache. Doesn't "colored" sound more interesting than "black" or "white"? Again, from childhood, it was quite proper to say "the colored lady who lives down the road." Now, you'd start a fight if you said that.

Then again, it may have sounded proper when one considers the frequently used alternative from my boyhood. My Mom and Dad were hell on the "n-word", but interestingly enough, my Dad's brothers were some of the vilest racists I ever met. I'm not sure where they picked that up, as my grandparents were certainly not that way... and in fact my Dad and his brothers were to a large extent raised by a black man and woman who worked with their family. They grew up with a black "Aunt" and "Uncle."

123 posted on 07/14/2003 12:26:17 PM PDT by TontoKowalski
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To: Pharmboy
RE: 122.

1. We know better
2. You're in good company

124 posted on 07/14/2003 12:29:31 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: stainlessbanner
Yeah, and the performance was disrespectful and distasteful. Already said so.
125 posted on 07/14/2003 12:31:14 PM PDT by Im Your Huckleberry
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To: Pharmboy
I don't consider defending a good and admirable man from obnoxious slurs to be obnoxious.

It's precisely the reason the myths about the man propogated. It's the reason his reputation was besmirched after the war. People repeated it, and it spread, and no one care whether it was true or not.

So yeah, I feel an obligation to step in when I see it or hear it and refute. That's not obnoxious. Say whatever you want about him, but I'll defend him and refute your statements each and every time.

As to the comment about owning slaves, I stand by it when it comes to southern sympathizers. Because there's no excuse for it and it is the reason they were fighting the war. All the rationalization in the world doesn't change the fact that in the end, they were fighting to preserve an agrarian aristocracy that sustained its existence by turning other men into beasts. You're confusing indignation with "hysteria" but that's your problem.

Sorry, I don't let any southern sympathizers or "Lost Cause" adherents off on that one. I'll call it exactly as I see it. And anyone who wishes the south had won, or supports the southern cause, in the end, is wishing that slavery had remained an institution. Period. There isn't any escaping the fact, no matter how "obnoxious" anyone thinks it is to point that fact out, or how much they don't want to hear it.

126 posted on 07/14/2003 12:39:27 PM PDT by Im Your Huckleberry
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To: TontoKowalski
there's a difference between colored in the US and coloured in the English colonies... coloured means a person of mixed race or like in South Africa who descented from the original Dutch and Malay/African stock. My grandmother will often call me coloued or half caste but she's old and sweet you see. Or bruin messe, meaning coloured in afrikaans. My mother will sometimes talk about 'old niggers' that is people with very distasteful manners but that is an island term used across by everyone. There is a beach in Trinidad called Nigger Beach.
127 posted on 07/14/2003 12:39:31 PM PDT by cyborg (i'm a mutt american)
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To: stainlessbanner
Well, this will blow your mind.

I support the Sons of Confederate Veterans and their desire to preserve their heritage, and their right to fly the Confederate battleflag over their cemeteries, monuments, and state capitols.

Try not to pass out...breathe, breathe...

128 posted on 07/14/2003 12:42:29 PM PDT by Im Your Huckleberry
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To: Im Your Huckleberry
I think you may be too late Dr.
129 posted on 07/14/2003 12:46:37 PM PDT by cyborg (i'm a mutt american)
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To: Im Your Huckleberry; azhenfud; Constitution Day; stand watie
Well then, the SCV and all the good Americans in the North and South thank you for your support.

I wouldn't run in the next meeting and say Grant's #1, though.

130 posted on 07/14/2003 12:47:09 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: cyborg
I fight the fight, regardless of how the deck is stacked against him.
131 posted on 07/14/2003 12:53:43 PM PDT by Im Your Huckleberry
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To: stainlessbanner
What has HK Edgerton been up to lately? More importantly he ought to be in movies...
132 posted on 07/14/2003 12:55:21 PM PDT by cyborg (i'm a mutt american)
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To: Im Your Huckleberry
"Try not to pass out...breathe, breathe..."

Turning blue, Huckberry?

133 posted on 07/14/2003 12:58:19 PM PDT by azhenfud ("for every government action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction")
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To: stainlessbanner
I get quite incensed watching the PC trying to remove all vestiges of southern heritage.

It was one thing to fight the war, and be on the wrong side of the issue. That's a debate I fight in historical circles.

But the fact that the descendents of men who fought and died, gallantly - and who in the end were Americans - want to preserve the memory of their ancestors and honor their valor...that I have no problem with and I think they have every right to do so...and no one has the right to tell them to take down their flags or remove their names from hospitals and schools or tear down their monuments.

I argue quite often with those who seek the removal of the Confederate battleflag from every place it flies. It is not a racist symbol. It is a battleflag and men fought and died under it.

The fact that some backwoods, redneck, inbred morons with two teeth want to wear white pointy hoods and happen to wave the "Stars & Bars" doesn't make the Confederate battleflag a racist symbol. The Klan waves and flies the American flag too, and as I often ask, does that make the American flag a racist symbol too?

Anyway, my support for Grant and the Union, and occassionally reminding "Lost Cause" diehards who want to besmirch certain Union generals because it makes them feel better, doesn't extend to besmirching the southern generals and leaders or besmirching the gallant men who fought and died in one of the worst wars the world has ever seen.

Most of the SCV men I've met are gentlemen, and quite level headed about the war and its outcome.

134 posted on 07/14/2003 1:00:57 PM PDT by Im Your Huckleberry
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To: cyborg
Haven't heard much from Mr. Edgerton. He was present and saluting the SC Confed. Memorial at Thurmond's funeral services.
135 posted on 07/14/2003 1:01:49 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: yankeedame
Man, she can dance on my grave anytime - as long as I get to look up.
136 posted on 07/14/2003 1:03:04 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: azhenfud
That line was for him, not for me. I figured he might pass out after my "hysterical" defense of U.S. Grant, that I let fly with that little revelation.
137 posted on 07/14/2003 1:04:20 PM PDT by Im Your Huckleberry
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To: Im Your Huckleberry
Okay---It's finally time to invoke Godwin's Law

Godwin's Law /prov./ [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups.

Ah, so if I call you a Nazi, I lose, while if you are a Nazi, you win...

This variation in Godwin's Law is apt since you have accused me of being PRO-SLAVERY! All because I said the that General Grant drank! (And we didn't even get to his terrific job as President of the US).

So, you've lost (but many on this thread knew you were a loser already...)

138 posted on 07/14/2003 1:27:31 PM PDT by Pharmboy (Dems lie 'cause they have to...)
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To: Pharmboy
but many on this thread knew you were a loser already...)

Oh, I am simply crushed because Pharmboy thinks I'm a loser...in fact, there's probably two or three other people on the thread who think so too...oh, crushed! Crushed, I am!

Whatever shall I do?

Maybe I'll go have a dram of single-malt to wash away the blues...

139 posted on 07/14/2003 1:31:17 PM PDT by Im Your Huckleberry
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To: Im Your Huckleberry
Have three; maybe it will make you more rational.
140 posted on 07/14/2003 1:34:40 PM PDT by Pharmboy (Dems lie 'cause they have to...)
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