The New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Flyers are banning the playing of Kate Smith’s recording of “God Bless America” at their games because she also sang a couple other songs they deemed racist. On this Easter Sunday I’m surprised that these snowflakes ever allowed it to be played at all, no matter who was singing it considering it contains the word God and all. But was Kate Smith really a racist?
Yankees drop Kate Smith’s ‘God Bless America’ after questions of possible racism arise
The New York Yankees reportedly confirmed Thursday that they were no longer playing a Kate Smith version of “God Bless America” during the seventh inning of home games, after the team learned of a Depression-era song she’d recorded that raised questions of possible racism.
Two songs cited by the New York Daily News, which broke the story, included “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” a 1931 hit for Smith, and “Pickaninny Heaven.” Smith’s 1939 version of “God Bless America” had been in the rotation at Yankee Stadium since the team began regularly playing the song following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
“The Yankees have been made aware of a recording that had been previously unknown to us and decided to immediately and carefully review this new information,” a club spokesman told the Daily News. “The Yankees take social, racial and cultural insensitivities very seriously.
“And while no final conclusions have been made, we are erring on the side of sensitivity.”
Smith and her rendition of “God Bless America” have been most closely associated in the sports world with the Philadelphia Flyers, who had a decades-long stretch of remarkable success in games preceded by her version. She performed it at the team’s former arena, the Spectrum, before the Flyers won the first of their two Stanley Cup titles in 1974, and a statue of her was later placed outside the arena.
But check this out:
The Daily News reported that the Yankees “are investigating” Smith’s legacy of potentially objectionable music and noted that some have described “That’s Why Darkies Were Born” as meant to satirize white supremacists.
AND
The song, which was also recorded by Paul Robeson, the son of a runaway slave who would go on to become a civil rights activist, includes these lyrics:
The Wikipedia entry about the song also indicates it was meant as satire. And it was recorded by a black pro-Soviet Union activist. So why would such a person record it if he found it to be racist?
The article then goes on to cherry pick the lines that the author finds offensive. But I’m going to give you the lyrics to the entire song because the last half of it reveals something the article doesn’t want you to see.
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;
Someone had to fight the Devil,
Shout about Gabriel’s Horn,
Someone had to stoke the train
That would bring God’s children to green pastures,
That’s why darkies were born.
I don’t see a whole lot of racism here. Of course the liberals will whine, “But she used the term darky!” Yet Dictionary.com tells us “The earliest uses of darky in English were sentimental, probably affectionate in intent . . . But by the early part of the 20th century, the term had became increasingly offensive and unacceptable.” I don’t know about you, but 1931 seems like the “early part of the 20th century to me.” Therefore the term was not widely viewed as being racist.
“But she said they were born to pick cotton!” That’s satire because in the last two verses she says that blacks taught whites to stay positive under difficult circumstances. That blacks fought the devil, praised Gabriel, and helped “bring God’s children to green pastures.” Are those not all positives?
Smith, who was born in Greenville, Virginia, grew up in the Washington, D.C., area and was nicknamed “The Songbird of the South,” died in 1986 at age of 79. She was one of the first big stars of radio and also appeared on Broadway and in several movies.
Smith starred in a 1933 film, “Hello, Everybody!” in which she sang “Pickaninny Heaven.” Dedicating the song to “a lot of little colored children living in an orphanage,” she sang of how “great big watermelons roll around and get in your way” and “luscious pork chop bushes bloom right outside your doorway,” as the movie showed a room full of black children listening to her on a radio.
Oh no! She implied that black children like watermelons! Well, don’t most children? As for pork chops, I wasn’t aware that it was a black stereotype. I thought fried chicken was. But the libs claim it is, so be it. But she also references that this heaven has “a Swannee River made of real lemonade,” “Every kind of pet from a big teddy bear to a little Mickey Mouse.” Aren’t those all things children of all races would enjoy? She goes even further and says Santa Claus is black! “And old Black Joe is their Santa Claus.” Does any of this sound like the work of a racist?
“But she said, “Pickaninny!” Merriam-Webster defines pickaninny as “used as a term for a black child – dated, now offensive.” NOW offensive. But how offensive was that term in the 1930s? Here’s an example, Wikipedia states that, “In 1987, Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona defended the use of the word, claiming: ‘As I was a boy growing up, blacks themselves referred to their children as pickaninnies. That was never intended to be an ethnic slur to anybody.”
In 1939, a cartoon ad for a baking powder Smith endorsed featured a “Mammy Doll,” a bandanna-clad figure meant to evoke stereotypical notions of black women in the kitchen, along the lines of Aunt Jemima. In the ad, a “Mammy” character tells a white woman who is bad at cooking, “You jes ain’t got a way wid an oven, honey chile!” After subsequently using a recipe book by Smith to successfully bake a cake, the woman sends the doll to the delighted singer as a gesture of gratitude.
Umm, so what?
In 2009, the Yankees fired tenor Ronan Tynan, who had been performing live renditions of “God Bless America,” after he reportedly confirmed to the team he’d made an anti-Semitic remark and claimed it was just a joke.
The Flyers reportedly had not recently been using Smith’s version of the song. The team has yet to publicly comment on the Yankees’ decision to stop playing her rendition during games.
In an updated article from another site the Flyers said, “we are removing Kate Smith’s recording of ‘God Bless America’ from our library and covering up the statue that stands outside of our arena.”
And so Kate Smith’s statue now looks like this:
Surely it will only be a matter of time before it is removed completely like every other statue that triggers totalitarian liberals.
You want an example of some real racism? Listen to this short intro to democrat Ice Cube’s album, “Lethal Injection.”
The racist Ice Cube often attends sporting events. Should his music not be banned from any sporting event? Should he even be allowed to attend any sporting event because of the racist recordings he’s made in the past? Shouldn’t he be banned from any public appearance anywhere, all evidence of his existence removed, and all his recordings thrown into a bonfire?
Nope. Liberal hypocrisy. Even if Kate Smith really was a racist, it must be so nice to be a liberal. Because everyone knows none of them have anything in their pasts that might be considered unsavory.
