That's the big deal these days thanks to finger-pointing PC witch hunts. And you thought the McCarthy Era was over!
"Oooh, there's Dr. J. Marion Simms' statue in Central Park. He be racist!" So says some loudmouth politician. Rather than debating the facts, or getting them RIGHT, out goes to the statue, literally to the graveyard where the man is buried.
"Oooh, Stephen Foster, he be racist!"
So say the finger-pointers who apparently never heard a heartfelt rendition of "Old Black Joe." It would seem that Stephen Foster, at best, shared the same view of slaves as Abraham Lincoln did.
Honest Abe once wrote to a friend, Joshua Speed:
"....in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils...You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me..."
Is it at all POSSIBLE that Foster, who loved Dixie, also felt compassion for Old Black Joe and other slaves? But let's ignore that for the sake of some smug bullies playing the race card. TAKE DOWN THE STATUE.
The latest statue to fall? KATE SMITH of all people.
KATE SMITH, the woman who is on a U.S. Postage Stamp.
THAT Kate Smith.
In her prime, when Franklin Roosevelt was President, she was presented to England's King George VI. President Roosevelt said:
“This is Kate Smith. Miss Smith is America."
Decades later, Kate Smith was awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Until this past week, Kate was heard by millions every year singing "God Bless America" at Flyers games, and at New York Yankees games. These are two teams that didn't bother to hire a black player until most other teams in their leagues had already done so. The Yankees were among the LAST to acquire a black player (Elston Howard). They recently stopped playing Kate Smith's version of "God Bless America" at home games, and a few days later, the Flyers made a similar decision, AND they cloaked and then removed her statue.
Yeah, Kate Smith, SHE BE RACIST, Y'ALL.
Did the Yankees or Flyers investigate Kate Smith and find proof of this? That she never worked with a black musician? Never autographed something for a black fan? Did anything bigoted?
What happened to "innocent till proven guilty?"
No, no, some ANONYMOUS finger-pointer played the race card, and in this PC world, that's enough to screw up all rules and common sense, and kneejerk the wrong response, and bend over backwards because of somebody's ignorance and screeching.
Face it, if the actual Yankees and Flyers players were like their owners, and did the bending over backwards and the kneejerking, they would all be on the disabled list.
Meet you after the break...
The decision to ban Kate Smith's nostalgic recording was based on...two obscure songs that nobody ever plays! In fact, one of them she apparently didn't even record, but sang in an obscure movie almost nobody's seen since it came out.
She recorded THOUSANDS of songs...on 78 rpm singles, on albums, on transcription discs for radio broadcasts. TWO are objectionable to a few quivering wimps and sanctimonious clods at the Yankees and Flyers front office.
Up until recently, racial humor was ok. It was ok for Chico Marx to do an Italian accent. It was ok for the Marx Brothers to end "Room Service" with a ridiculous rendition of "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" that included a few "Yeah, man" black-stereotype impressions from Groucho. It was ok for some uncomfortable stereotype black people to dance with Harpo in "A Day at the Races." It was OK for Groucho to make endless jokes fat-shaming Margaret Dumont.
Now fat Kate Smith has been slandered and nobody thinks it's a shame?
The 30's. The 40's. Kate Smith was popular on records and on radio. Also popular? Warner Bros. cartoons. In "Fresh Hare," the punchline was Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in blackface, with minstrels in the background:
Warners was the company that made Al Jolson the star of their first talkie, "The Jazz Singer," in which he, of course, sang in blackface.
Do we NOT show ANY movies made by Warner Bros. anymore? Is that the punishment because a few of their cartoons aren't PC anymore?
Of course not. Because Warner Bros. is a a multi-million-dollar company. Kate Smith is one dead singer. Her distant relatives are being ignored.
Who is speaking up for Kate Smith? Her niece. Some white woman who doesn't matter to the Yankees or the gutless Flyers who could've said, "We aren't jumping to the wrong conclusion just because of the Yankees." Kate's niece Suzy Andron spoke to a few reporters but how many papers, magazines, or Internet websites picked up on it? Almost none.
“I’m appalled,” she said of the mistreatment of Kate Smith. “Aunt Katherine was probably one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. She was certainly anything but a prejudice person. She loved everybody.”
Not good enough.
Not good enough in THIS environment, this UN-AMERICAN environment of witch hunts, finger-pointing, and kneejerk decisions where opinion is mistaken as fact.
What ARE the facts here? Kate Smith MADE "God Bless America" great.
Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1918, but nobody cared. 20 years later he sought out Kate Smith with a new version of his song, hoping that with his changes and her talent, it would be a hit. It was.
Kate performed it on her radio show, November 10, 1938. She said it was....
“…a song that’s never been sung before by anybody …one that was written especially for me …a song that will never die."
Kate sang it at many Philadelphia Flyers games in the 70's, and that's why they erected a statue for her. Which they have since taken down.
OK. You want to know what the TWO songs, out of the THOUSANDS Kate sang, led to her downfall.
"Pickaninny Heaven," which she sang in an obscure 1933 movie, is just one of many sympathetic, if misguided songs that condescending whites sang. In the film she prefaced it this way:
"“And now folks, I’m gonna sing this next song for a lot a little colored children listening in an orphanage in New York City. Here ya are, kids..."
Does THAT sound like a racist remark to you?
Take a look at her singing it:
Does this look like a bigot in action?
At the time, "pickaninny" was simply a mild term for a young black child, and there are similar-sounding words in a dozen languages, including Spanish: pequeño. It means LITTLE, that's all. Sammy Morrison, a black child actor used in "Our Gang" comedies, starred in his own short called, yes, "The Pickaninny."
That it's offensive NOW doesn't mean it was offensive then. "Colored people" (as in the NAACP, and as Stevie Wonder's "Living For the City") was likewise a common term at one time.
The Philadelphia Flyers' management cringes and moans and bends over backward and clutches their delicate ears because some anonymous person said "Pssst...Kate Smith sang a few racist songs." No, she didn't. She did NOT. At the time they were NOT racist songs.
That the Flyers are upset that TODAY they might seem racist is absurd. Just tell anyone who is offended NOT to be. The Flyers were playing "God Bless America" at the games. Why not leave it at that? They put up a statue because they wanted to honor her.
There's a statue for Hank Williams. Should THAT be taken down because he once offered a recitation called "The Funeral," that mentioned a "colored" child's "protruding lips?" He didn't mean to be offensive. It's one thing not to play THAT song again or "Pickaninny Heaven," but it's insane to defame the person and ban all their music.
Kate caring about black kids in an orphanage is BIGOTRY? This is a BAD woman??
Yes, the song uses stereotypical phrases that are cringeworthy NOW. But they were NOT CRINGEWORTHY THEN and her intent was to cheer up the kids and not degrade them.
In the song, Kate sang about a fantasy candy-land where there were "great big watermelons" and "a river made of real lemonade."
She sang to THESE kids, who are NOT looking stereotypical:
In one of the opening lines, she tells the children that they will go to this heavenly place and love it: "I'VE BEEN THERE..." says Kate. And then she talks about the joys of this heaven.
Bigotry is the nasty "coon song" that insists blacks are lazy or violent, and there aren't many of them, because hate songs of any type were not what major record labels were about. Not then, not now. The worst and most racist songs on blacks come from small indie labels in the South; "Johnny Rebel" songs with insults and epithets. There are hate forums that offer downloads of them, and unless reported when they appear at auction, sold on eBay, too.
We all know, don't we, about "Old Man River," another song which was intended to be sympathetic to the black plight, but is now considered clumsy and even racist.
"I heard that they've even got a Swanee River made of real lemonade...heaven...heaven...living all together in a gingerbread house...they eat the windows and doors, they eat the ceilings and floors...."
Philadelphia Flyers, you DARE to slander a great American over THAT?
You tell the world that she was a racist and what she's done should be forgotten? You apologize for EVER playing "God Bless America?" How INSANE. How outrageously ridiculous that is. Is this white guilt or PC madness?
Obscure now, but probably as well known as "Old Man River" at one time, is "That's Why Darkies Were Born."
Did you ever hear it?
I never did, up till now, researching this piece. I do recall Groucho Marx using it as a comic punchline. But until this Kate Smith fiasco, I never checked it out. THAT is how obscure the damn thing is.
There are people who don't even know the words to "God Bless America," and the Philadelphia Flyers are concerned that these people have heard an old Kate Smith song that you'd need a turntable to play. You'd need to deliberately go hunting for it on a streaming service like YouTube.
Yes, it's one of those clumsy attempts at explaining why blacks were suffering. The same "logic" has been applied to many minority groups. Jews? They've suffered for 2,000 years. That's part of being the Chosen People. Right? And blacks?
“Someone had to pick the cotton,
Someone had to pick the corn,
Someone had to slave and be able to sing,
That’s why darkies were born;
Someone had to laugh at trouble,
Though he was tired and worn,
Had to be contented with any old thing,
That’s why darkies were born...
Sing, sing, sing when you’re weary and sing when you’re blue,
Sing, sing, that’s what you taught all the white folks to do...
Guess what. Kate Smith didn't WRITE the song. She was one of MANY who merely COVERED it. What say we track down EVERY singer who covered it, and haul their bodies out of their graves and burn them?
If we do that, we'd have to dig up....PAUL ROBESON.
If you want to listen to this song, go over to YOUTUBE and you'll see KATE SMITH and PAUL ROBESON side by side:
Ooops. Did you notice a detail for the Paul Robeson version of "That's Why Darkies Were Born?" It says:
"Provided to YouTube by Warners Music Group."
Yep, them RACIST Warner Bros. again. When, oh when, are the Yankees and Flyers going to persuade the world to boycott ALL Warner Bros. products because of what they did in the 30's and...what they are STILL doing?
Did you notice that the Robeson version was "2008 Remastered?" Yes, they be racist MASTERS to the black slaves! They MASTERED this Darkies song and put it on YOUTUBE. Damn!
Anything else the anti-Smith mob dug up to justify this ridiculous witch hunt? Oh yeah...
While the Yankees and Flyers didn't mention it, there WAS an ad in a 1940 magazine about "Kate Smith's Mammy Doll."
Huh? What up?
No, she was NOT selling a Mammy Doll. She didn't even BUY it. It was GIVEN to her in a made-up comic strip that she may not have even seen before it was published.
This was the same era as UNCLE BEN'S RICE and AUNT JEMIMAH PANCAKES and Hattie McDaniel as Mammy (winning an Academy Award) in "Gone With the Wind." Kitchen help was often "colored," and the term MAMMY was not perjorative.
The Calumet baking powder company used Kate Smith to endorse a cookbook with "147 grand recipes...from the most lavish layer cake to the simplest biscuits..."
For SIX CENTS, to cover the cost of the postage (this was 1940) a person could send away for Kate Smith's Recipe Book.
That's what this ad is all about. Titled "Kate Smith's Mammy Doll," it describes a white woman who frets that she can't cook nearly as well as her colored maid. What CAN she do about this? Well, "Honey Chile" (a term you often heard in those days), the answer was to get a copy of Kate Smith's recipe book.
In the comic panel, we see that this worked like a charm, and one day, Kate Smith received a "mammy doll" in the mail, by way of gratitude.
WHAT is wrong with THAT? Nothing in 1940. Nothing at all. Not a good idea NOW, but why are we applying NOW to what Kate Smith's sponsor did in 1940, or what her record label chose for her?
The surprise, really, is that Smith lasted this long. After all, she IS white, and she sings "God Bless America" all wrong. Not enough SYLLABLES added. You know, the Whitney Hou-oo-ooo--ahh-ooo-ahh-ahh-yehhh-ohhh-ston approach. Today we prefer black singers to sing the National Anthem a sporting events (diversity!) and applaud as they compete for the most ridiculous, and disrespectful show-off version possible.
These days, old white versions of ANYTHING are prone to be tossed in the garbage. Frankly, if the Flyers or Yankees had quietly substituted Ray Charles' classic version of "America" for Kate's "God Bless America," nobody would've cared. It would've simply been a sign that Kate's day had passed. But to have it end with slander, and the taint of racism?
The Philadephia Flyers?
Look at their choice of photo for their Twitter feed. Some toothless violent asshole in a melee:
Isn't it ironic that HOCKEY has some kind of "morals?" If that were really so, there would be no hockey fights. But that's why people come to the games. They're waiting for two morons to drop their fat mitts and grab each other by the shirt and bop some snoot.
Hockey is loaded with toothless redneck WHITE FOLKS on cold ice trying to beat the shit out of each other. If we're being HONEST, the Flyers don't nearly have the amount of black fans that the 76'ers do, and that won't change. Basketball will ALWAYS be more popular than hockey.
It's doubtful the Yankees or Flyers will back off in their sanctimonious ignorance. Things will probably get worse.
When WILL that N-Word be clipped out of every new edition of "Huckleberry Finn" and every old copy BURNED in a huge bonfire? When WILL "The Jazz Singer" DVDs be officially banned from Amazon mail-order, and anyone owning a copy forced to turn their copy over under threat of jail?
Civil liberties and common sense are under fire. In God-less America, faceless corporate owners of sports teams, and power-mad owners of gigantic Internet sites now rule and do as they please. Taking down statues of Dr. Simms, Stephen Foster and Kate Smith is only the beginning. Bullying, censorship, and the ignoring of common sense are all on the rise.
TWEET TWEET TWEET.
The Philadelphia Flyers are not about to APOLOGIZE to Kate Smith's relatives, and declare that they made a ridiculous kneejerk decision without knowing all the facts. They'll continue to shout "God Bless America" even when they are acting like a bunch of Fascists and Communists.
UPDATE APRIL 22
This morning's NY Post confirmed that Kate Smith's statue was taken down, and the idiotic and sanctimonious PRESIDENT of the Philadelphia Flyers was not going to allow something from the "past" to interfere with the good name of the Philadelphia Flyers of today.
Yeah? How many Flyers are black? How many people in your office are black? How DIVERSE are YOU? What's in YOUR past?
We don't know what nameless jerk whispered the "allegations" to you and the Yankees, like some conspiratorial brat in a Lillian Hellman play, but how about if some investigators start checking out every little thing YOU ever said in your life? Or your players? Will you all come up lily-white clean? Or will there be a reason for the ALLEGATIONS to lead to you ALL being fired?
So far, our leerless feader, Donald J. Trump hasn't Tweeted about this affront to America. Maybe it's because he's a fan of bullying and collusion? He doesn't dare do something that might seem like he's not America's greatest Civil Rights leader ("the blacks love me")?
Let's take a look at the Philadelphia Flyers roster.
Hmmm...they don't seem to have much DIVERSITY do they? They talk about what a racist Kate Smith is? Where are all the BLACKS on this team? I see one possible "mixed race" guy, and that's IT.
Who was the race-card-playing troublemaker who told the Flyers and Yankees that Kate Smith was some kind of bigot?
Why isn't the REVERSE noticed? How about the Philadelphia Flyers having almost NO DIVERSITY AT ALL?
Why is that? Doesn't it look like the PHILADELPHIA FLYERS are the RACISTS?
WHITE AS THE ICE. That's the Philadelphia Flyers. A huge field of WHITE ICE with barely one BLACK PUCK.
And yet the owners of the Flyers had the kneejerk wussiness to instantly rush to judgment, and not only ban Kate Smith's "God Bless America" but spend money knocking her statue down!
In an environment of witch hunts and allegations, NOBODY is safe. And that's NOT America.
"Don't it make you feel ashamed, to live in a land where justice is a game..."
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