The Kate Smith Flap Sets an Ominous Precedent...

Kate Smith

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The NY Yankees and Philadelphia Flyers have both stopped using Kate Smith's "God Bless America," because two other songs from her very extensive playlist are racially offensive.

It's hard to actually think of anything that WASN'T somewhat insensitive/offensive back then. Al Jolson was doing his blackface routine and two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, played Amos Jones (Gosden) and Andrew Hogg Brown (Correll), as well as the other incidental characters in the hit radio show, "Amos & Andy," which the pair created, wrote, as well as voiced all the characters.

In Kate Smith's case, the two songs focused on are from 1931. At the time, Kate Smith was a 23 y/o singer, working in a show called, "George White's Scandals."

She DID NOT write the songs ("That's Why Darkies Were Born" & "Pickaninny Heaven"), she merely sang songs she was assigned to sing in a filmed stage performance, which was subsequently made into a recording. Paul Robeson recorded the song, "That's Why Darkies Were Born," as well.

They ARE both "racially offensive" songs, BUT we aren't focused on the writers, just the singer.

Beyond that, the accepted views of that age would be unrecognizable today, so they're virtually impossible to judge by today's standards.

"That's Why Darkies Were Born" was written by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w…/That%27s_Why_Darkies_Were_Born)

"Pickaninny Heaven" was written by Arthur Johnston, with lyrics by Sam Coslow. Johnston also wrote, "Pennies From Heaven,"

Coslow & Johnston also teamed up to write many of the songs to a number of Bing Crosby musicals. Should Bing be banned at Christmas now, too?

So now, according to this precedent, we can't use, "I Believe I Can Fly" during any sporting event, nor in a movie, because it was sung by R. Kelly? In that case, Kelly not only sang, but wrote, produced and arranged that song. So, "I Believe I Can Fly" can't be used because R. Kelly wrote a lot of songs with sketchy, misogynistic lyrics (https://www.fuse.tv/2012/09/r-kellys-raunchiest-lyrics) and has been accused of sexual misconduct by a number of women?

Will Michael Jackson's songs be banned from public use, if he's found to have been inappropriate with children?

How about Jerry Lee Lewis and Edgar Allen Poe, who both Married under-aged girls?

Should all the works of all those talents be buried because those who produced them had flaws?

This smacks of cheap virtue claiming. Someone looked up these insensitive songs and the Yankees and Flyers both jumped at the chance to both get ahead of something they felt could generate controversy AND claim some cheap virtue for themselves, as well.

In truth, most people are a "mixed bag." We have strengths and weaknesses, virtues and flaws. That's true of people today, just as it's true of those in the past.

Ty Cobb may well have been the terrible person he's often been depicted as, BUT the truth is, he's STILL an all time GREAT baseball player.

While those two songs, the Henderson/Lew and Johnston/Brown songs, SHOULDN'T be played today, "Pennies From Heaven" and "God Bless America" remain great songs, and just as Ty Cobb remains a great baseball player, Kate Smith's "God Bless America," R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" and Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror," and a host of others, remain GREAT songs, despite any other flaws their artists may have had.