So, now we're banning Kate Smith?

   When I first read the story about the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Flyers discontinuing the playing of Kate Smith’s version of “God Bless America,” my first thought was God help America.

I understand the “Me Too” movement and its goals.

I understand the prejudices and racism that lingers in America, which has to be exposed at every opportunity.

I understand the concept of zero tolerance. That if we let something go unchallenged, the problem only gets worse, although zero tolerance has proven just as bad as the original problems.

Well, newsflash. We have another problem to worry about. We are fast becoming a nation with no common sense. It would be too easy to say, as we often do, that a lack of leadership at the top is the reason for all the stupid-ness at the bottom, but “too easy” is another problem we face in this country.

The reason for throwing Kate Smith under the bus was her 1931 recording of “That’s why Darkies were born,” written by Tin Pan Alley lyricist, Lew Brown.  Forget that the satirical song poked fun at whites. Forget that at the same time, in the real world deep south far from Tin Pan Alley, real whites were lynching real Negros.

Forget that Lew Brown also wrote “Don’t sit under the apple tree” and the “Beer Barrel Polka.” He also wrote “Shine,” which had racial overtones and was recorded by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Anne Murray among others. He wrote most of his songs between the two world wars, a time when Negros couldn’t attend white schools, eat in white restaurants, or sit in the front of the bus.

These songs were written and recorded for one reason and one reason only. Audiences were buying them.

The lyricist were writing and the singers singing about a very real world that didn’t exist on records.

My point is, yes these were terrible times involving terrible laws and outrageous criminal behavior, but the music industry was only reflecting the world that existed at that time. The music industry didn’t create that world. In fact, the music industry has played a large role in taking us away from that world.

Individual American bigots and racist, those who are often given cover under the cloak of American Exceptionalism, gave us that world that we’d now like to expunge from memory.

Maybe, it’s time to take that picture of old granddad down from the wall.

Or, we can stop taking it out on individuals and start fixing a culture that has been bad for so long that all we can do is search for scapegoats.

    This in no way excuses statues of Confederate generals. They fought against this country. And their statues were only erected during the same period many of these songs were written, not to entertain people, or to honor the soldiers as their supporters claim. They were erected to send a message that the war might have been lost, but the fight was going to continue.

Whatever the issue that people think something needs to be done about, I suggest we attack the issue. Shakespeare may have been right when he wrote, “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” That doesn’t make it right. The good should count for something.

Attacking individuals, particularly individuals having nothing to do with the problem is getting tiresome, especially when so many real problems go unfixed. Playing the blame game and not doing the hard work is another problem we face in today’s world.

Blacks are having their voting rights attacked in North Carolina and other states. Republicans harp on voter fraud as if it were a real thing and are virtually silent about Russia attacking our elections.

None of this has anything to do with a song Kate Smith recorded in 1931. Descendants of people who listened to that song back then are guilty of racism today. White nationalists are still the problem. Kate Smith is not a problem.

A lot of what the entertainment industry has done in the last century is questionable, going all the way back to, “Birth of a Nation,” but everything they have done has been geared to their audiences.

If we stop using common sense, who knows what dumb thing we’ll do next? Let’s give entertainers a break and start shaping up ourselves.