From sportswriter and commentator Clay Travis:I want you to think about this for a moment — what kind of person scours the recording history of a woman dead for over thirty years to complain about a song recording nearly 100 years old? Is that person a normal, sane and representative example of modern American life or... ?
Philadelphia's premier sports radio talker has weighed in on the Flyers/Kate Smith controversy more than once.The Flyers owe the family of Kate Smith an apology for the knee-jerk decision to remove her statue from outside the Wells Fargo Center 10 days ago. Rather than do their own research, the Flyers blindly followed the lead of the New York Yankees, who stopped playing her rendition of God Bless America after uncovering her recordings of two racially-insensitive songs from the 1930s. Kate Smith fought for racial equality during her long career. To paint her as a racist, 36 years after her death, is an injustice the Flyers must correct immediately.
Following is the complete list of the 2019 Tony Award nominees, just announced:
The tone underlying the banishment of Smith from Yankee Stadium and the Flyers’ Wells Fargo Center are ominous and McCarthyesque. The Flyers actually took down their statue of Smith. Is the intent to turn her into a nonperson as the Soviet communists did to their enemies? Will those who agitated to ban Smith launch a new Inquisition, summoning thousands of dead Americans before their self-appointed tribunal to determine, “Did you ever use a racially derogatory term or hold any racist opinions at any time in your life?”
And what about those people in the Yankees’ and Flyers’ organizations who caved in so readily to the complaints of a small number? Why didn’t they show respect for their fans by polling them about whether they wanted to keep or replace Smith’s “God Bless America”? It seems to me that they acted on the basis of shortsighted expediency.
Why give positive reinforcement to people who apparently want to wield power, not only over the present and the future, but even the past? Such characters can’t be appeased. On the contrary, their success in banning Smith will encourage them to embark on a quixotic quest, going around tilting at windmills as they try to settle scores with ghosts.
If Smith had been newly exposed as a lifelong bigot, the case for declaring her persona non grata would be strong. No one has suggested anything of the kind. On the contrary: In 1951, Smith invited Josephine Baker to appear on her popular TV program, the first time the controversial black entertainer was on American television. . . . .
Before deciding that someone’s name or image (or recording) be purged from a place of honor it has long occupied, I propose a two-part test: (1) Was the person honored for unworthy or indecent behavior? (2) Is the person known today primarily for unworthy or indecent behavior? If the answer to both is no, the honor or memorial should stay.
Kate Smith was a beloved singer who brought joy to millions and raised America’s spirits in dark times. That is her legacy, not a couple of dubious long-forgotten songs.
Kate Smith's own words from a 1945 radio broadcast:It seems to me that faith in the decency of human beings — is what we must have more of, if there is to be a future for all of us in this world. We read in the papers every day about conferences on the best way to keep the peace. Well, I'm not an expert on foreign affairs — and I don't pretend to know all the complex things that will have to be done for a lasting peace. But I am a human being — and I do know something about people. I know that our statesmen — our armies of occupation — our military strategists — may all fail if the peoples of the world don't learn to understand and tolerate each other. Race hatreds — social prejudices — religious bigotry — they are the diseases that eat away the fibers of peace. Unless they are exterminated it's inevitable that we will have another war. And where are they going to be exterminated? At a conference table in Geneva? Not by a long shot. In your own city — your church — your children's school — perhaps in your own home. You and I must do it – every father and mother in the world, every teacher, everyone who can rightfully call himself a human being. Yes, it seems to me that the one thing the peoples of the world have got to learn if we are ever to have a lasting peace, is — tolerance. Of what use will it be if the lights go on again all over the world — if they don't go on … in our hearts?
Whitlock: The New York Yankees and Philadelphia Flyers decision to eliminate Kate Smith’s rendition of ‘God Bless America' doesn’t improve race relations. @WhitlockJason pic.twitter.com/LCSMAihPUm— Speak For Yourself (@SFY) April 20, 2019
He started investigating who Kate Smith really was. Something the Flyers and Yankees should have done before they did what they did. What Troiano found was that, "She was under contract and required to sing those songs, After that I looked at the over 520,000 miles she traveled entertaining the troops, she brought in over 600 million dollars worth of war bond money to help finance the war and all of the proceeds from Smith's 'God Bless America' go to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, That song has no racial overtones to it at all."
Well, about 50 some years ago, a young gay man (they were called homosexuals then) wrote a letter to the civil rights leader and explained how he was troubled about his sexual orientation. The Reverend King did not tell this young man that he should accept himself and glory in his identity as a homosexual. King actually implied that the young man was psychologically ill, and needed help. He did it, of course, in the kindest of ways.
So who's ready to rename Martin Luther King Drive back to West River Drive?
And then you have Richie Ashburn, who apparently acted in a racist and deeply disrespectful manner toward Jackie Robinson back when Number 42 was the first black man to integrate the majors. Who's ready to help me remove his statue at Citizens Bank Park?And President Obama used to have a problem with same-sex marriage, until he checked his polling numbers and decided that he was all for the wedded bliss of Adam and Steve. Can we pull down that weird portrait of his from the White House? (or is it too early?
And George Washington held slaves. Want to take up a collection for the dynamite to blast Mount Rushmore to smithereens?
You see the idiocy of these attempts to whitewash history and the dishonesty of the people who are on that simple-minded crusade?
Don’t let the Poobahs of Political Correctness lead you to believe that it is a good thing that Kate Smith’s statue is gone. Don’t give them that respect, unless each and every one of them is willing to rename a river drive, exile a Hall of Famer, cover up a portrait and detonate TNT on the side of a famous mountain.Click here to read the entire column.
Of all the stories we've reported on this blog over a period of more than ten years, few have generated the interest (and, quite frankly, the outrage) as the story of the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Yankees banning Kate Smith and God Bless America.. . . she [Kate Smith] has been posthumously singled out and put on trial like a Salem witch – without a chance to defend herself or her motives – as both the hometown Flyers and New York Yankees, a team so reluctant to sign black players that they reportedly passed on Willie Mays, have taken steps to make sure the singer of “God Bless America” is vanquished from history.
Truth be told, the Flyers winning the Stanley Cup in 1974 – and again in 1975 – was a highlight of my wayward youth. The whole Kate Smith thing – the playing of “God Bless America” and her showing up in person before Game 6 of the finals in 1974 to belt out the song – was a bit silly to me (and I was the ripe old age of nine).
The fact that the Flyers erected a statue of her was embarrassing, but taking it down – now – is beyond mortifying.
Left in the place of where the statue once stood, we have yet another downright blatant case of political correctness run amok.
In the final analysis, this is more about what is or isn’t fair when dealing with what I regard as the most valued possession any person has, that being their legacy. . . .
These ignominious events caused me to research Smith a bit more, and I found nothing – as in zero – that the woman held any racist views.
There is zero evidence Kate Smith was anything other than a wonderful person, a great American who served her country during an epic war and put her popularity on the line by inviting the controversial (and brilliant) Josephine Baker to appear on her television show. Of the 3,000 songs Smith recorded, two have been exhumed from eight decades ago and have been used to ruin her reputation for eternity. Yes, eternity. Vegas has nothing on Google. Once something is on the web it stays on the web.
So, “Kate Smith” and “racism” will pop up in search engines forever. The same way “McIntyre” and “bad hair” will show up. If it can happen to someone as benign as Kate Smith it can happen to anyone. . . . .If we are to excommunicate artists from other eras of history because they made the mistake of being born when and where they were born then we will become the very people we claim to despise: book burners. . . . . As we strive for a fairer, freer, less judgmental world, a good place to start would be to stop judging men and women of the past by the standards of today. If the social media-driven cybermob continues to pull down everyone and everything that fails their ever-changing wokeness litmus test, “God Bless America” will soon become “God Help America.”
One day, Smith rested comfortably in her grave, renowned as a musical genius and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The next day, her favorite hockey team had covered her head with a sheet.
In February 1976, Smith performed a weeklong series of concerts at Cleveland’s Front Row in Highland Heights. Her health was already declining, and she would soon stop her national tours. But the sold-out audiences connected with the aging musician. She closed all of her sets with “God Bless America.”
Jane Scott, the venerable Plain Dealer Rock Critic, attended the Wednesday concert and wrote a glowing review. She noted Smith’s “majestic voice” and “booming, hearty manner.” She described her as “old fine wine.” . . . .
Kate Smith had a catalog of hundreds of songs. Two of those songs have come back to haunt her from the grave. Nonetheless, the body of her work stands. God blessed America with Kate Smith.
Smith was an iconic pop singer with more than 3,000 recordings to her credit.
As the Smithsonian Magazine reported:
“‘God Bless America’ was her most iconic hit. In 1938, Smith was reportedly searching for a song to perform on her CBS radio program on the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day. She reached out to composer Irving Berlin to find out if he had anything new to offer, and Berlin decided to finish a song that he had started writing one year earlier. ‘In a short time, the song supplanted ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ as the nation's most popular patriotic song,’ the Times reflected in her 1986 obituary, adding, ‘There were attempts—all unsuccessful—to adopt it formally as the national anthem.’”
She was such a symbol of patriotism that, to quote the Smithsonian Magazine again:
“In 1982, President Ronald Reagan awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“‘Kate always sang from her heart, and so we always listened with our hearts,’ Reagan remarked. ‘It's been truly said that one of the most inspiring things our GIs in World War II, Europe and the Pacific, and later in Korea and Vietnam, ever heard was the voice of Kate Smith.’”
Despite decades of patriotically serenading our military – and having sung the most popular patriotic song in American history – Smith could not survive the judgmental hatred of the modern left.
Kate Smith, the singer best known for “God Bless America” — and, most recently, for “That’s Why Darkies were Born” and “Pickaninny Heaven” — died in 1986.
Therefore, she can’t issue a tearful, public apology for singing those songs or songs such as “Blue Tail Fly” and “My Old Kentucky Home” before the lyrics were changed to make it more palatable for the Kentucky Derby crowd. She can’t explain that the 1931 hit song “That’s Why Darkies Were Born” — a song that says someone had to pick the cotton, plant the corn, laugh at trouble and be content with any old thing — is satirical. Not was satirical, mind you. It is as satirical today as it was the day it was recorded almost a century ago.
She also can’t explain that the “Pickaninny Heaven,” a song written by Broadway and film composers Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow, was featured in the 1933 motion picture “Hello Everybody!” In her corny role as a radio personality who lived on a farm with her slimmer, cuter sister, her character dedicates the song to a group of black orphans who listen as the lady on the radio describes a place twice as high as the moon, where watermelons get in your way and a Swanee River flows with real lemonade. . . .
She can’t point out that had her career tanked after “Hello, Everybody!” — which cost around $2 million to make — bombed at the box office, “God Bless America” might not have been recorded in 1938. And she can’t defend or distance herself from the objectionable songs she sang in the past, although she might point out that nobody seems to be making a peep about the men who wrote those songs, some of whom are highly acclaimed and are in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Like her, they are all dead.
The New York Yankees’ bold decision to ban Kate Smith’s 1939 recording of “God Bless America” from the stadium over two racist songs she once performed surely calls for further brave steps by the team.
Stadium-goers in the seventh-inning stretch will no longer be forced to listen to the strains of Smith, who recorded the 1930s song “That’s Why the Darkies Were Born” — a number that was also performed by black entertainer Paul Robeson for satire’s sake.
But if the Bronx Bombers are serious about standing tall against racism, they must next ban the national anthem, which is sung before every game.
Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner” in 1814, owned slaves — at least six of them, as a matter of historical record. Isn’t “ownership” of human beings a more grave offense than merely ridiculing black people in a song that a 24-year-old Smith had to perform at the behest of her record company?
Key even refers derisively to slaves in the anthem itself. The forgotten third verse includes the lines, “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave” — a warning to blacks not to seek freedom (as some did) by escaping their white masters to fight with the British in the War of 1812.
Oh, say can you stomach it? . . . .
Kate Smith's family says they're heartbroken over the uproar that’s resulted from two sports teams banning her version of the classic patriotic song “God Bless America" from playing in their arenas.
A statue honoring the late singer stood near the Wells Fargo Center where the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team play. It was removed under the cover of darkness and without any public announcement.
Smith’s niece, Suzy Andron, was being interviewed by KYW-TV when she found out the statue was gone.
“They took the statue?” she asked, visibly shocked. . . . .
Bob Andron is married to Suzy. He appeared on Fox News Thursday to defend the late singer's reputation.
He said that his wife and her aunt were very close and that Smith was not a racist.
“She never was a racist and my wife’s reaction was she was heartbroken,” he said.
Adirondack Diversity Solutions, a regional consulting firm whose goal is to diversify the workforce, has a take on the Kate Smith controversy different from that of many Lake Placid residents.
A popular 20th-century radio star, Smith was a staple of this community for nearly 40 years.
She spent her summers here, was baptized into the Catholic Church at St. Agnes Church, hired local kids as caretakers for her camp on Buck Island and would sometimes help work the register at Flora Donovan’s Lavender Shop on Main Street.
She’s buried at St. Agnes Cemetery off Sentinel Road.
Many locals were dismayed when the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Flyers stopped playing her rendition of “God Bless America” in light of two other songs she sang, in the 1930s, that featured racist lyrics.
The Flyers also removed a statue of her that had stood outside their arena.
In a day, the Enterprise’s Facebook page received more than 40 comments in regard to an article about Smith, with the majority praising her and bemoaning modern political correctness.
The Press-Republican Facebook page saw similar activity, with most respondents' posts indicating they considered the issue a tempest in a teapot. . . . .
The recent banning of old-style singer Kate Smith from several sports venues is a travesty. Smith’s rousing “God Bless America” was a wonderful corny staple of Yankees games and others. The fact that she also sang some songs that were appropriate for their time and now seem unacceptably racist is no matter, none whatsoever. In the words of L.P. Hartley: “The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.” . . .
I have no doubt the banning of Kate Smith was a commercial decision, a kow-towing to the nine or ten “activist” voices who threaten boycotts and get their mugs on the news and are thus constantly ruining things for the rest of us. But the Yanks and others should have resisted. They embraced the political stupidity.
Banning a beloved entertainer for living in her time is just dumb. It involves a complete misunderstanding of how history, humanity and true progress really work. It cheapens our conversation, lessens our pleasure and disrespects our past. . . .
