The problem of cowering to and enabling SJW's

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Sports teams dump Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' because of her racist songs


The first song is seemingly outwardly racist but it should be noted it was recorded by noted civil rights activist Paul Robeson. The second one is based on stereotypes and none of them is “God Bless America” of which her version is arguably the most stirring. Kate Smith’s rendition of the song is part of hockey history, the Flyers won most games when the song was played as well as two Stanley Cups. If we are going to ban every song made by bigots or have done bad things we need to ban most songs.

The Flyers and Yankees are virtue signaling.

I watched this when it happened, very memorable.



Kids looked bored or pissed.


Just reading the lyrics the song looks racist as hell. Listening to the song I have a different view the tone is of pain. I can see why Paul Robeson recorded it.

Members of the Lake Placid Rotary Club had a lot to talk about this past weekend as Kate Smith's reputation was challenged over racist lyrics in a couple of songs she recorded in the early 1930s.

The question was posed, "Should the Rotary Club keep the name of its Kate Smith Scholarship Award?" The answer?

"For this year, we're just going to call it the Lake Placid Rotary Club Music Award and then go from there," said Rotary Club President Susan Friedmann

Since 1994, the Rotary Club has been giving out the scholarship to a deserving junior or senior at the Lake Placid High School interested in studying any form of music. It's traditionally been handed out around Smith's birthday, May 1. In 2018, then-junior Emma Bishop received a cash prize of $1,000 to be used for college applications or other college-related expenses.

"The last thing we want to do is to offend anybody, so we're actually in discussion as to what to do with regard to the name," Friedmann said. "We're not a political organization. ... We just want to stay safe and be part of the community and be well serving. Our motto is 'Service above self,' and that's what we want to do. We don't want to take any stands on anything."

Though originally from Virginia and Washington, D.C., Smith spent time in Lake Placid for about 35 years, including many summers at her Camp Sunshine on Buck Island in the village's namesake lake, where she turned the second floor of her boathouse into a recording studio. There is a memorial for her in the entry of St. Agnes Church, where she was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic in 1965, and to which she left a large bequest. She was inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame. The Arts & Music Gallery at the Lake Placid-North Elba Historical Society features her records, sheet music and photos. She raised money for the Placid Memorial Hospital, the Uihlein Mercy Center and multiple youth programs. Her signature song, "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain," is seen as a love letter to the Adirondacks. And finally, she was buried in a mausoleum at the St. Agnes Cemetery after she died in 1986 at the age of 79.

Kate Smith’s statue has been wrapped up and carted off from outside the Wells Fargo Center. Reaction to racist lyrics in two songs she sang — “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” recorded in 1931, and “Pickaninny Heaven,” from a 1933 movie — silenced her rendition of “God Bless America” at Flyers and New York Yankees games.

Now it’s time to complicate the record further and consider Smith as a champion of racial tolerance.

In a long-forgotten radio speech in January 1945, “the First Lady of Radio” gave an impassioned speech attacking bigotry and racism, calling them “the diseases that eat away the fibers of peace.” As millions listened, she called for every church and family to commit to tolerance and understanding.

Which Smith is the real Smith? The purveyor of racial stereotypes or the crusader for social harmony?

“Are the songs racist? Of course they are,” says Susan J. Douglas, a professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan and author of Listening: Radio and the American Imagination. But in matters like this, where a moment from the past ignites a current debate, context matters, she says: "People don’t think about the historical context, and they don’t think about nuance at all. Without wishing to defend or advocate for Kate Smith, I’d point out that there’s a huge difference between the early 1930s and 1945.”

It’s hard to overstate Smith’s standing in her day. At her height, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America. She had a string of million-selling records and a series of national radio programs throughout the 1930s. As of January 1945, when she gave the speech on the CBS show We, the People, she had two weekly shows.

In this particular speech, she first told the story of a Christian family in Belgium that hid three Jews from the Nazis. And then this, as recounted in the May 1945 issue of the popular radio magazine Tune In:

"It seems to me that faith in the decency of human beings is what we must have more of, if there is to be a future for all of us in this world. We read in the papers every day about conferences on the best way to keep the peace. Well, I’m not an expert on foreign affairs — and I don’t pretend to know all the complex things that will have to be done for a lasting peace. But I am a human being — and I do know something about people. I know that our statesmen — our armies of occupation — our military strategists — may all fail if the peoples of the world don’t learn to understand and tolerate each other.
Race hatreds — social prejudices — religious bigotry — they are the diseases that eat away the fibers of peace. Unless they are exterminated it’s inevitable that we will have another war. And where are they going to be exterminated? At a conference table in Geneva? Not by a long shot. In your own city — your church — your children’s school — perhaps in your own home.
You and I must do it – every father and mother in the world, every teacher, everyone who can rightfully call himself a human being. Yes, it seems to me that the one thing the peoples of the world have got to learn if we are ever to have a lasting peace, is — tolerance. Of what use will it be if the lights go on again all over the world — if they don’t go on … in our hearts."

People heard it, all right. The sponsors of We, the People said they received more than 20,000 requests for reprints. Newspapers across the land reprinted passages.

Smith spoke as the Battle of the Bulge was raging; the anti-Nazi message is loud and clear. So is the fear that social division might weaken the nation in time of war. But the speech reaches further, to include “race hatreds” and “social prejudices.” The change she seeks is not by treaty but by a sincere change of hearts and minds.

Some might find it hard to square such full-throated social crusading with the two 1930s songs. “Pickaninny Heaven” — pickaninny is an offensive and, condescending term for a black child — imagines the afterworld as a place where “Great big watermelons roll around and get in your way.” “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” tells us that “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.”

Douglas acknowledges the toxic lyrics, but says that by the mid-1940s, things had started changing. “The music Smith sang in the early 1930s derived from 1920s culture,” Douglas says, “and the 1920s was a very race-hostile environment, with a big resurgence of the KKK and worsening conditions for many blacks. But by 1945, you have increasing self-awareness in the country about our social divisions, increasing discussion, for example, about integrating the military,” which President Harry S. Truman eventually did in 1948. “Membership in the NAACP was rising, and you have black figures such as boxer Joe Louis, who became a national hero for defeating Hitler’s favorite boxer.”

As popular culture historian J. Fred McDonald writes in his online history of radio, Don’t Touch That Dial, throughout the 1940s a groundswell of public discussion denounced the mistreatment and misrepresentation of African Americans, including derogatory stereotypes in the media. Smith’s speech sits squarely in that movement.

Douglas wonders: “Why can’t it be the case that Kate Smith did sing those songs and yet had moved by 1945 to a new position, because of what was changing all around her?”

During their weekly meeting Thursday morning, April 25, at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel, members of the Rotary Club of Lake Placid decided to keep Kate Smith's name attached to their annual high school music scholarship.

"We are keeping things the way they are," club President Susan Friedmann said by phone Thursday evening.

On Monday, Friedmann told the Lake Placid News that members of the club had a lot of discussions this past weekend about keeping the name of the award intact as the late singer's reputation was being challenged over racist lyrics in a couple of songs she recorded in the early 1930s.

Satire or not satire? Who can tell.

On Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump clinched the presidency, a student at Oberlin College entered a local bakery and convenience store, hoping to leave with a few bottles of wine.

Instead, Jonathan Aladin, 19, ran from the store brawling with an employee, Allyn D. Gibson. The scuffle between the two men – the young black student, a sophomore at the time, and the white businessman – turned into a standoff between the liberal arts college and the downtown establishment, a proxy war in a much larger struggle over free speech, racial sensitivity and town-gown relations.

The skirmish came with a price tag for the college of $11 million, the sum awarded on Friday to the business by a jury in Lorain County, Ohio. The judgment, which found the college responsible for libel and infliction of emotional distress, provided a bookend to the bitter conflict, which has divided the Oberlin community, nestled 35 miles from Cleveland.

Gibson’s Bakery is a century-old, family-owned business whose fortunes are tightly bound to the college. The shop long supplied bagels and pastries to Oberlin, the town’s largest employer. Alumni return for the apple fritters and whole-wheat doughnuts.

The storied business sits adjacent to the campus, a bastion of liberal activism. Founded in 1833, Oberlin was the first interracial and coeducational college in the United States. The town was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Today, it is nearly 15 percent black, compared to 5 percent of Oberlin’s undergraduate population that identifies that way.

In recent years, the college has been an epicenter of the campus culture wars – a site of vehement debate over trigger warnings, safe spaces and the limitations of the Western canon. At Oberlin, no issue is too trivial for critique, not even the authenticity of Chinese cuisine served in the cafeteria.

In the fall of 2016, students were on high alert following the dismissal of an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition, Joy Karega, over incendiary statements on social media, including her suggestion that Israel was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Karega, who is black, said she was a victim of discrimination. The college’s Black Student Union, assailing Oberlin as an “unethical institution,” had previously called for her tenure.

The confrontation between Gibson and Aladin led to the student’s arrest and arraignment on a robbery charge, which in turned spurred allegations of racial profiling, igniting protests that unfolded in the overwrought days following the 2016 election. Residents of Oberlin favored Hillary Clinton to Trump 11 to 1, while the surrounding county, where the case was later heard, came down on the side of the Democrat by scarcely more than 100 votes.

When Aladin arrived at the front of the store, Gibson, 32 at the time, told the student that he was contacting the police, saying he had seen him slip two bottles of wine under his clothes. When he pulled out his phone to take a picture, according to a police report, Aladin slapped it away, causing it to strike the Gibson’s face.

Gibson followed the student from the store, where they began exchanging blows across the street, which is campus property. Police said they arrived to find Gibson on his back, with Aladin, joined by two friends, punching and kicking him. All three were charged, Aladin with robbery and his friends with assault.

Students encouraged a boycott of the establishment, which is owned by Gibson’s father, David R. Gibson, and his grandfather, also named Allyn.

“A member of our community was assaulted by the owner of this establishment yesterday,” read a flier distributed outside the bakery, calling Gibson’s a “RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.” The leaflet recommended 10 rival businesses where patrons could go instead.

Police later conducted an investigation and found that 40 adults had been arrested for shoplifting at Gibson’s in a five-year period, among them six African Americans.

The college suspended its Gibson’s order in the days following the incident but restored it in early 2017. In August, the three students at the center of the tumult pleaded guilty to amended misdemeanor charges. Before their sentencing, which involved restitution but no jail time, each student read a statement acknowledging that Gibson was justified in trying to restrain Aladin, and that the owner’s actions had not been racially motivated, according to court documents.

Three months later, Gibson’s filed a civil complaint against Oberlin in the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas. Accusing the college of lending support to the protests, the Gibson family sued the institution, as well as its vice president and dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, for libel, slander, interference with business relationships, interference with contracts, deceptive trade practices, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent hiring and trespass.

The owners argued that college leaders facilitated the “illegal defamation and economic boycott” by helping students copy and distribute the fliers, as well as joining them at protest actions and allowing them to skip class and gain credit to continue their campaign. According to the complaint, a Facebook post by an Oberlin academic department stated, “Gibson’s has been bad for decades, their dislike of Black people is palpable. Their food is rotten and they profile Black students. NO MORE!”

“Gibson’s Bakery has suffered a severe and sustained loss of student, professor, administrative, and college department business,” the complaint argued. It also pointed to a “severe emotional and physical toll” on the family. Their home had been damaged, they claimed, and their car tires punctured.

The college responded by arguing that none of the statements cited by the bakery’s owners had been defamatory. Instead, they represented protected speech. Specifically, the filing maintained that the allegation of racism could not be grounds for a defamation claim because it was a statement of opinion that could not be proven false.

Lawyers further argued that Oberlin was not responsible for the views expressed by its students. Raimondo, in her response, said she was present at the protests to ensure they did not descend into violence.

Oberlin did acknowledge that some of its students viewed the bakery’s owners as racist. Lawyers for the college accused the Gibson family of adopting an “us versus them” mentality toward the campus community, citing posts on social media by the younger Gibson that took aim at “entitled” students. In a further response, the college denied allowing students to skip class in favor of their protest activity.

Jurors in Lorain County heard the case this spring. Communication unveiled in court filings and at trial revealed how different members of the college community reacted to the controversy. Some were apparently embarrassed by protest activity they felt reflected poorly on the campus, while others said the boycott had been effective in targeting Gibson’s with a “smear on their brand” since the business was unresponsive to other forms of pressure.

Raimondo took the stand and denied accounts that she had instructed college staff to engage in unruly behavior at the demonstrations. She said she lacked “control of the students.” Court documents revealed how she and another administrator shared a sense of outrage after a professor spoke against the boycott.

“[Expletive] him,” Raimondo wrote in a message, the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram reported. She added, “I’d say unleash the students if I wasn’t convinced this needs to be put behind us.”

The lawsuit ensured it wasn’t.

On Friday, jurors awarded Gibson’s and its owners $11 million. According to the Chronicle-Telegram, the court found that the college had libeled the bakery and its owners, in addition to inflicting emotional distress on the owners. It found that Raimondo was also responsible for libel, as well as for interfering with the bakery’s business.

The court assigned $5.8 million to Gibson’s father and $3 million to his grandfather, as well as $2.2 million to the bakery. The plaintiffs could gain more in punitive damages, which are the subject of the second phase of the trial, set to begin Tuesday.

In the episode’s aftermath, however, the college has aimed to mold the behavior of its students. Last year, Oberlin’s president, Carmen Twillie Ambar, wrote to the local business community about a set of new initiatives designed to teach incoming students how to be a “good neighbor” to local establishments.

The effort includes encouraging students to buy local goods and a new orientation program whose title makes its aim unambiguous: “Community 101.“

^ This was a very good verdict. Oberlin College officials were basically running a Ku Klux Klan-type operation of threats and intimidation, trying to destroy a local business.

The jury is today deliberating in the punitive damages phase. We shall see if there is any further award.

^ This was a very good verdict. Oberlin College officials were basically running a Ku Klux Klan-type operation of threats and intimidation, trying to destroy a local business.

The jury is today deliberating in the punitive damages phase. We shall see if there is any further award.

Maybe err on the side of not flirting with racism? I don't see what's lost here.