OK, I'll say it... we are too sensitive

[TipsyTraveler]

Should we take George Washington off the $1 bill? Jefferson off the $2? Should we tear down both of their memorials?

If the government and/or people of this country thought there were more deserving historical figures we could be honoring in those places instead then sure, why not?

 

[sam_gordon]

If the government and/or people of this country thought there were more deserving historical figures we could be honoring in those places instead then sure, why not?

OK, do *YOU* think the memorials should come down and the faces taken off paper money?

 

[TipsyTraveler]

OK, do *YOU* think the memorials should come down and the faces taken off paper money?

It’s not an issue I personally care about but I certainly wouldn’t mind if it were to happen. Personally, if given the power, the first change I would make to our currency would be to remove the religious reference.

 

[Cubbiecakes]

Should we eliminate some US Presidents from books, history, landmarks, status, etc., because they were slaveowners?

Um, this (editing/omitting to make things look better) already happens to our schoolbooks.

 

[Southernmiss]

Can't we all just get along?

 

[sam_gordon]

It’s not an issue I personally care about but I certainly wouldn’t mind if it were to happen. Personally, if given the power, the first change I would make to our currency would be to remove the religious reference.

Wow, are you a politician IRL? I'll ask a third time... do you think the memorials should come down? After all, the people they memorialize were slave owners. I'm not sure how much more racist you can get. It's a yes or no question.

In all honesty, I had never heard of the lady before I read the article. I don't really care if her version is played or not. I just disagree with using THIS reason as the excuse. Then again, I don't believe playing her version encourages, accepts, or allows racism.

 

[piccolopat]

Yup, call me crazy, but racism will always offend me.

I think what you are missing is that if you had lived a hundred years ago, your views on morality might have been different because societal norms were different.

 

[NotUrsula]

Oh wow. I have been trying to figure out why I knew who she was but I did. And I can hear her sing God Bless America in my mind. Maybe she used to be on Bob Hope specials or something.

Or something, LOL. Kate Smith was a staple on variety TV shows up through the 70's. National holidays would roll around, and you could count on KS turning up on daytime/variety shows like Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas or Dinah Shore to chat and sing. Prime-time shows, too. She used to turn up often on Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin's shows, and even was on Sonny & Cher. She had her own syndicated daytime TV variety show for over 20 years. Reagan gave her a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

My parents were huge fans of variety shows; they NEVER missed Sullivan on Sunday nights. I could not stand her voice, and I can very clearly remember getting the heck out of dodge if I knew she was going to be on. Clips of her singing either the National Anthem or GBA have been included in many films, including A Night at the Opera and The Natural, and that is her recording of "Silver Bells" in The Polar Express movie. Her voice was so recognizable that pretty much everyone knew it; there were lots of jokes about her songs -- today I'm sure she'd be a star of lots of memes.

The kind of racism that you can accuse Kate Smith of, at least in her professional life, was the kind that was VERY common in her heyday; the kind that most white people who lived in homogeneous communities in the US thought nothing of, and the kind that very many of our parents and grandparents were guilty of: benevolent paternalism. Yes, it was wrong, and mostly arose from ignorance, but it was very seldom malicious. I'm sure that didn't make American blacks at the time feel all warm & fuzzy, but there was a whole lot of distance in degrees of evil between humming Old Kentucky Home as a pleasant song, and burning a cross on someone's lawn. Quietly retiring Kate Smith recordings from public venues makes sense in our time, but I'm not sure it's necessary to make an example out of her this long after the fact. It's rather hypocritical to do so, IMO, because she was really loved by a huge portion of the American populace in all parts of the country, who saw nothing wrong with her work at the time, and THOSE people were usually people we loved and respected as children. Times change, people change, and we turn away from admiring things we realize in hindsight were not really right; when it comes to dead public figures, most of the time that's enough.

Kate Smith sold millions of dollars in War Bonds during WW2, doing quite a bit to help Hitler's defeat. Does that fail to cancel out agreeing to sing a piece of paternalist claptrap?

PS: The Yankees and Flyers could easily have changed to another recording by a female "belter" style vocalist and probably very few fans would have noticed any difference. I'm rather surprised that they hadn't by now.

 

[disneyjunkie]

In the 30's it was. I am not applying todays moral code to society 80 years ago, that is wrong.

Edited to add:
The tide was turning towards it not being ok but it still was. Oftentimes people have to be drug kicking and screaming into the new reality. That kicking and screaming was demonstrated during the civil rights movement.

Even though some of the government and civil rights activists were working to change peoples beliefs, events from 1954-1968 demonstrated that it was not even a 50/50 belief in equality by the general populace.

Racism was never morally acceptable.
Some people just made the CHOICE to ignore and/or deny it because it had no impact on them.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

It never fails. The ones getting the most bent out of shape over (insert topic here) are always the ones who accuse the other side of being too sensitive.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

Wow, are you a politician IRL? I'll ask a third time... do you think the memorials should come down? After all, the people they memorialize were slave owners. I'm not sure how much more racist you can get. It's a yes or no question.

In all honesty, I had never heard of the lady before I read the article. I don't really care if her version is played or not. I just disagree with using THIS reason as the excuse. Then again, I don't believe playing her version encourages, accepts, or allows racism.

I already answered you but I’ll answer again: I don’t care. Do you really go through life taking a passionate stance on every single issue? If the general consensus is that these people are worth honoring, let them stay as they are. If the tides turn and our society comes to believe whichever historical figure in question represents enough negativity that they no longer deserve to be honored, I’m fine with that, too.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

It should not matter. Should we eliminate some US Presidents from books, history, landmarks, status, etc., because they were slaveowners?

Big difference between scrapping history books and not playing the song of someone at a sporting event. Irving Berlin wrote it. She just sang it. They could certainly find another singer to do it. If not, plenty of recordings of other people singing it survive, including Irving Berlin himself.

 

[luvsJack]

Or something, LOL. Kate Smith was a staple on variety TV shows up through the 70's. National holidays would roll around, and you could count on KS turning up on daytime/variety shows like Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas or Dinah Shore to chat and sing. Prime-time shows, too. She used to turn up often on Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin's shows, and even was on Sonny & Cher. She had her own syndicated daytime TV variety show for over 20 years. Reagan gave her a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

My parents were huge fans of variety shows; they NEVER missed Sullivan on Sunday nights. I could not stand her voice, and I can very clearly remember getting the heck out of dodge if I knew she was going to be on. Clips of her singing either the National Anthem or GBA have been included in many films, including A Night at the Opera and The Natural, and that is her recording of "Silver Bells" in The Polar Express movie. Her voice was so recognizable that pretty much everyone knew it; there were lots of jokes about her songs -- today I'm sure she'd be a star of lots of memes.

The kind of racism that you can accuse Kate Smith of, at least in her professional life, was the kind that was VERY common in her heyday; the kind that most white people who lived in homogeneous communities in the US thought nothing of, and the kind that very many of our parents and grandparents were guilty of: benevolent paternalism. Yes, it was wrong, and mostly arose from ignorance, but it was very seldom malicious. I'm sure that didn't make American blacks at the time feel all warm & fuzzy, but there was a whole lot of distance in degrees of evil between humming Old Kentucky Home as a pleasant song, and burning a cross on someone's lawn. Quietly retiring Kate Smith recordings from public venues makes sense in our time, but I'm not sure it's necessary to make an example out of her this long after the fact. It's rather hypocritical to do so, IMO, because she was really loved by a huge portion of the American populace in all parts of the country, who saw nothing wrong with her work at the time, and THOSE people were usually people we loved and respected as children. Times change, people change, and we turn away from admiring things we realize in hindsight were not really right; when it comes to dead public figures, most of the time that's enough.

Kate Smith sold millions of dollars in War Bonds during WW2, doing quite a bit to help Hitler's defeat. Does that fail to cancel out agreeing to sing a piece of paternalist claptrap?

PS: The Yankees and Flyers could easily have changed to another recording by a female "belter" style vocalist and probably very few fans would have noticed any difference. I'm rather surprised that they hadn't by now.

Aha! Dean Martin’s show! That would be where I definitely would have seen her! Loved Dean Martin as kid. No idea why, he just always appealed to me.

Lordy, just realized I spent my childhood watching a man sing with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other and having had many previous drinks! Lol. But I still love that voice.

And yes, you are right about the ignorance. Many learned in later years. But it took something or someone to enlighten them.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

The issue lies in I'm a white man. In today's PC society everyone gets a say in what I should feel, what I can or can't say, what I can or can't do. If I disagree I'm a racist, bigot, etc... In this way the PC culture is out of control.

Tsk, tsk.

My status as a privileged straight while male allows me to roll my eyes at other white males who like to play the victim card.

 

[LSUmiss]

My question is where do you draw the line? Welp...that’s just how it was under the 3rd Reich. Things were different then.


Some things are just wrong & always have been no matter how socially acceptable at the time. My grandparents grew up in the Jim Crow south & knew how wrong it was then & didn’t participate or condone it then. My father was one of the few kids who played with the first kid who was “integrated” into his school when he was in elementary. He said he got picked on for it then by other kids & remembered at even a young age understanding how wrong it was. I knew a lady around my father’s age who was one of the first to be integrated into the same school & her story was absolutely heartbreaking to hear. She was a just little girl. So, I’m supposed to believe ppl didn’t know that kind of stuff was wrong??

Imo, ppl had to have known it was wrong & chose to ignore it. And making excuses for ppl’s behavior is just rationalizing it b/c it’s hard to accept that ppl we admire did things they should have known weren’t right.

 

[low-key]

not me, Im like a moose in a china shop

 

[Julie's Haircut]

You didn’t know who Kate Smith was before now?

Nope, never heard of her.

You're not alone. Many people under 30 never heard of her. Of if they did, they only know that she was a singer their grandparents or great-grandparents listened to.

Even the Flyers' own research determined that many of their younger fans only know of Kate Smith because of her history with the team and feel no real connection to it.

 

[Skywalker]

I think what you are missing is that if you had lived a hundred years ago, your views on morality might have been different because societal norms were different.

I think this is the truth. People today have the luxury of judging others from their 2019 pedestals but in actual fact if they themselves lived in any other time in history would their morals and values reflect 2019? Realistically, no!

There is an entire global history of racism, war, genocide, you name it. Everyone, every culture, has skeletons. If we are going to judge everyone by today's standards let's just scrap all heroes and leaders from all countries, all races and civilizations in all of history before like 2010. And even then, in the future I am sure we will all look like savages. Somewhere, sometime, someone will think we were all evil too. So be it.

 

[kimblebee]

Or something, LOL. Kate Smith was a staple on variety TV shows up through the 70's. National holidays would roll around, and you could count on KS turning up on daytime/variety shows like Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas or Dinah Shore to chat and sing. Prime-time shows, too. She used to turn up often on Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin's shows, and even was on Sonny & Cher. She had her own syndicated daytime TV variety show for over 20 years. Reagan gave her a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

My parents were huge fans of variety shows; they NEVER missed Sullivan on Sunday nights. I could not stand her voice, and I can very clearly remember getting the heck out of dodge if I knew she was going to be on. Clips of her singing either the National Anthem or GBA have been included in many films, including A Night at the Opera and The Natural, and that is her recording of "Silver Bells" in The Polar Express movie. Her voice was so recognizable that pretty much everyone knew it; there were lots of jokes about her songs -- today I'm sure she'd be a star of lots of memes.

The kind of racism that you can accuse Kate Smith of, at least in her professional life, was the kind that was VERY common in her heyday; the kind that most white people who lived in homogeneous communities in the US thought nothing of, and the kind that very many of our parents and grandparents were guilty of: benevolent paternalism. Yes, it was wrong, and mostly arose from ignorance, but it was very seldom malicious. I'm sure that didn't make American blacks at the time feel all warm & fuzzy, but there was a whole lot of distance in degrees of evil between humming Old Kentucky Home as a pleasant song, and burning a cross on someone's lawn. Quietly retiring Kate Smith recordings from public venues makes sense in our time, but I'm not sure it's necessary to make an example out of her this long after the fact. It's rather hypocritical to do so, IMO, because she was really loved by a huge portion of the American populace in all parts of the country, who saw nothing wrong with her work at the time, and THOSE people were usually people we loved and respected as children. Times change, people change, and we turn away from admiring things we realize in hindsight were not really right; when it comes to dead public figures, most of the time that's enough.

Kate Smith sold millions of dollars in War Bonds during WW2, doing quite a bit to help Hitler's defeat. Does that fail to cancel out agreeing to sing a piece of paternalist claptrap?

PS: The Yankees and Flyers could easily have changed to another recording by a female "belter" style vocalist and probably very few fans would have noticed any difference. I'm rather surprised that they hadn't by now.

I am a Canadian in the literal center of Canada and I know who she is. Granted, it’s only because of hockey, but I still know who she is.

Having said that, I have her version of Silver Bells on my Christmas playlist and I never would have put two and two together. Now that you say it, it seems so obvious.

Fear of points will keep me from saying more.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

Right, I'm sure after all these years, in this day and age it's pure coincidence they decided to drop her song.
If you believe that I have a great deal on some ocean front property in Nebraska that I'm sure you'll love.

Certainly it isn't a coincidence that the Yankees decided to drop her. Someone definitely brought the matter to the attention of the team's upper management, perhaps even someone in the organization itself. But there was no outcry demanding the Yankees stop playing the song.

Maybe the Yankees should have just dropped the song without stating a reason. I doubt few would have really cared. If questioned, they could just say they decided to go in another direction.

Once the Yankees gave their reason, I suppose the Flyers found it necessary to follow suit.