A step too far

When they came for Kate Smith, there was no one left to answer for her. 

Well, not exactly. There was a niece who said Aunt Kathryn didn’t have a prejudiced bone in her body. 

Based on an anonymous tip, the Yankees and the Philadelphia Flyers banned Kate Smith’s recording of “God Bless America” after two songs she recorded in the Thirties that reference “darkies’ and “pickaninnies” were uncovered.

The Yankees, a team that dragged its feet when it came to integrating their roster (it didn’t happen until 1955, eight years after Jackie Robinson) had taken to playing Smith’s recording during the seventh inning stretch as a jingoistic rejoinder to 9/11.

The Flyers’ connection went deeper. The team believed playing her recording before key games was good luck. When the Flyers made their Stanley Cup runs 40 years ago, they brought Smith to the Spectrum to sing it live. After many years of watching her star fade, it must have felt like personal redemption to put on a glittery gown, follow the red carpet out to mid-ice and belt out God Bless America. Relevant again. The Flyers erected a statue of Smith outside the arena to show their gratitude. When they banned the song, they took the statue down. 

It’s more sad than anything, a knee-jerk cynical reaction made by marketing executives who fear perception is reality and the possibility of losing a ticket sale or two (and I don’t think I’m exaggerating about how many people might stay away if the teams continued to play the recording). 

But what happens in 80 years when someone blows the dust off Randy Newman’s “Rednecks”? With no understanding of context or point-of-view, but only hearing the n-word dropped countless times, do they push the Motion Picture Academy to take away his Best Song Oscar?

Or Bing Crosby’s blackface number in Holiday Inn. Does his “White Christmas” start falling off  of holiday playlists?

A wild-eyed Ralph Kramden threatening to send Alice “to the moon”? Maybe one day gone forever to the same purgatory where Amos and Andy, Vaughan Meader and Foster Brooks’ “drunk guy” were recently joined by Kate Smith.