Kate Smith is canceled!!

INSANITY!!

No one likes Kate Smith on DL because she's fat, not because she sang racist lyrics.

What does Irving Berlin have to do with racism? God Bess America's composer was a Russian Jew, Berlin, who also wrote White Christmas, Alexander's Ragtime Band and Heat Wave among hundreds of others. How dumb people are to call God Bless America a "Kate Smith song" since she was only the performer.

Dump Smith if you want, but keep Berlin.

They are playing a different version of the song. I think they ought to play this one at NBA games.

This one is a bit more up-tempo for the 76ers.

Irving Berlin was actually a vile satanist for writing songs glorifying both World Wars where millions were slaughtered to further the global usury banking interests.

Can I still listen to Reinhardt and Grappelli?

And after that song was written by a well-known Jew, Milton Berlin!

I’m not giving her the benefit of the doubt with , “it was a different time then.” They were racist songs and she knew it....along with everyone else at the time. Because of these people perpetuating those attitudes we are still dealing with these issues 90 years later.

But, but, they were satire.

Frank Sinatra liked to fuck Kate between her fat rolls.

She should be canceled because God Bless America is a HORRIBLE song. Melodramatic, off tone, ridiculous lyrics. Good riddance.

Is there some troll somewhere that has nothing else to do but look up injustices that were done a zillion years ago?

If Paul Robeson were alive today, would they go after him for singing the same songs Kate is being condemned for? Of course not, cause he was cullid.

A black person singing this song gives it a completely different meaning to a white singer covering it. The former makes it seemelancholy and ironic, the latter makes it icky and racist.

Shameful. I wonder if her statue is hollow - otherwise imagine how heavy it would be. Melt her down and ban her music (which is even too old for an oldies station).

I honestly can no longer tell anymore which news stories are real and which are satire.

Same here r17.

Yeah, it's cringe, but people have known about it for YEARS. Why raise a stink about it now all of a sudden?

Erna hasn't killed himself yet...let's continue to encourage him to do so.

Next thing you know, people will be getting fired and blacklisted for making jokes about terrible things that happened over a century ago. Tea drinkers will be accused of cultural appropriation because they're not Asian and people will start painting clothes on all of the nude Renaissance paintings in museums.

This whole PC Pussy/Snowflake/Social Justice Warrior/Fourth Wave Feminism culture is destroying this country. Their hypersensitivity, excessive historical censorship and complaining and bitching about improper terminology when referring to race or all 50 genders is ridiculous.

Dig deep enough, and everyone deaerves a black cloak like that.

R21: MARY! Get over yourself.

Jesus Christ, these lyrics.

[italic]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;

[italic]Someone had to laugh at trouble, Though he was tired and worn, Had to be contented with any old thing, That's why darkies were born;

[italic]Sing, sing, sing when you're weary and Sing when you're blue, Sing, sing, that's what you taught All the white folks to do;

[italic]Someone had to fight the Devil, Shout about Gabriel's Horn, Someone had to stoke the train That would bring God's children to green pastures, That's why darkies were born.[/italic]

Was this lady a Southerner? Because it’s hard to imagine this being ok anywhere outside the South.

RACISM IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

MUST.

BE.

STOPPED!!!

[quote] Was this lady a Southerner?

Honey, she was known as The Songbird of the South. She was born and raised in Virginia.

And those kinds of lyrics were endemic throughout the United States in the early decades of the last century. Try the original lyrics for this incredibly popular song by Irving Berlin from the 1920s by non-Southern Midwesterner Ruth Etting:

How many US Presidents owned slaves? Let's cancel them.

Should black people be canceled for the way they make fun of Chinese people in Chinatown? 🤔

What? No “this is why Trump will win” post yet?

If we're gonna cancel every artist associated with minstrelsy, get ready to junk most of early 20th century American musical history.

I mean, I'm all for getting rid of rote enforced patriotism at ball games, but this reasoning is specious and ahistorical.

[quote]No one likes Kate Smith on DL because she's fat

Fuck you! Look how slender I got in the 1970s!

The gays still love you, Kate. We don't care what you sing as long as you can belt it! Here she is at age 59...

[quote] The white gays still love you, Kate. We don't care what you sing as long as you can belt it! Here she is at age 59...

Fixed.

I don'y know where I read this , possibly DL, that Kate was a raving lesbian who picked out chorus girls and didn't take no for an answer. When I heard she had been cancelled , I thought it was because of this.

Of course her cliffs are white.....

When the Philadelphia Flyers played her version of God Bless America they usually won. When the Flyers played for the Stanley Cup. Kate sang the song in person. The team's record was 3-1 when Smith sang God Bless America in Philadelphia.

I live in Philadelphia..

Kate deserves reparations.

Here she is, R38.

[quote]Should black people be canceled for the way they make fun of Chinese people in Chinatown? 🤔

That’s payback for China’s illegal, immoral, and racist imperialism in Africa.

https://www.today.com/video/sports-teams-pull-kate-smith-s-god-bless-america-over-singer-s-past-lyrics-1500620867527

[quote]That’s payback for China’s illegal, immoral, and racist imperialism in Africa.

Oh, well at least there’s a good reason for it. 🙄

Damn she is not attractive .

She sang a Beatles medley with Tina Turner and Cher. It was ... awkward.

Good. Bitch couldn't sing anyway.

Does this mean the biopic is off?

No historical figure from almost 100 years ago will meet today’s standards of political correctness. Ban all history now! And get those reparation checks cut.

Judy garland did blackface, do ban “wizard of oz” from tv. Burn all prints.

Why was she so fat?

Initially Kate Smith was a major star in radio. She did fine on TV, but radio was how Kate become well known.

She substituted for Johnny Carson occasionally on The Tonight Show.

Kate Smith is one of those entertainers who was a household name in her day, but is pretty much forgotten now.

Even her name was boring as shit. Kate Smith. She might as well have changed her name to Jane Doe.

[quote]Why was she so fat?

Because she ate carbs like they were going extinct.

She looked better in all black, OP. It was more slimming.

[quote]That’s payback for China’s illegal, immoral, and racist imperialism in Africa.

0/10, I’ve seen black folks openly mocking Chinese people in Chinatown for decades, and Chinese involvement in Africa has only been happening for 10-15 years or so. Try again.

I’m fact invariably the worst bigotry I see perpetrated on the streets of nyc is invariably by blacks.

^^in fact

^^ and just one invariably, feel free to delete whichever one you prefer 😄

Apparently when this was brought up to identity politicians it embarrassed them. So now they say that black people cant be racist, because racism is discrimination + power. So they’ve just defined themselves out of a problem. No wonder independent voters are leaning right.

[quote]So now they say that black people cant be racist, because racism is discrimination + power.

Except that that’s true, and the same goes for Jews and gay people as well. Racism is when whites project their inferiority onto blacks.

Did Kate Smith's pussy stink?

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard!

What will they do next? Stop watching "The Wizard of Oz"?

One of her signature songs was "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain."

Groucho Marx observed that it would be hell to get her moon over a mountain.

If she were alive today, can you imagine how much fatter she would be?

If she were alive today, R64, she would BE the stadium!

Kate would be Chrissy Metz-sized if she were around today.

I fucking hate the liberalism of today. Instead of getting off their asses and pushing for policies that would actually help black people and other historically oppressed groups so many self-identified liberals and progressives do shit like this. Taking down Kate Smith’s statue or banning white people from dressing up like American Indians or characters from Aladdin at Halloween may make those people feel like they’re doing something to move the ball forward but it’s a totally lazy and superficial way to fight for social justice. Get the minimum wage increased, then worry about what singers they’re playing over the loudspeakers at sporting events

I agree, R67.

R67 nails it. I still think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we have a generation of people with access to an immense amount of information yet they don't know what to do with it all. And these people have way too much time on their hands.

LEAVE KATE SMITH ALONE!!!

R69, my impression is that we are living in the most equal, free, and prosperous society in the history of humanity, and we have a generation that has not experienced oppression or hardship of any kind, but they’re told by the media and extreme leftists that we still have an ultra-racist society due to the ridiculous power = racism theory mentioned above, so they latch on to dubious events to flog as an example of how terrible our culture really is.

Kate Smith at Carnegie Hall dropped in the 1960s. It may still be available at Amazon. Her talking voice on record or CD is very different from what one would expect. She signs the song with conviction.

But, every song ends with a high note; it is thrilling initially - but not on song after song.

Here's "As Long As He Needs Me" from the Carnegie Hall album R72 is talking about.

It is thrilling. She's the only person I've ever heard take the song up at the end.

The jig is up, Miss Smith.

I keep waiting for Washington, DC, to be renamed Uggams, DN.

N as in Nubia.

I vote for that!

Oh no, another person has been offended.

I'm offended by her fatness. What the hell did this Ho eat?

She was FAT during the Great Depression.

It takes a special talent to be obese during the Great Depression!

One of the largest slave owners in Virginia was a black man. A black woman was also a significant slave owner. Facts conveniently omitted from most 'history' books. Verificatia details on request.

She was a woman of her time and as American as many, many apple pies. People shouldn't be judging her based on modern views.

Many 'lipsticks' were very happy to have Kate sit on their face!

Remember Prop 8 and Amendment One and how blacks supported those.

I guess they’ll have to replace her Donnie McClurkin.

Black people know their own. This is a black woman passing for white. This is something that had to be done sometimes to get ahead during these times. The song was meant to be a satire.

Kat Smith was so cool. She was fat, knew it and proud of it.

She'd consider it an honor to be banned, because she was just that cool.

By that standard, “I Am Woman” makes Helen Reddy an edgelord.

I hope they don’t cancel Will Smith any time soon. All my other major professional associations, dead or alive, are morally fishy as well.

The news is so ridiculous.. with trump and the SJW, that not too long ago, it would be a parody. You can't make this shit up.

Here's Kate Smith singing with the Supremes in 1973.

" When the moon comes over the mountain,

Kate Smith will be blocking the view."

Kate would find it amusing to be rejected by the a-holes who have banned her.

Here's Suzanne singing with The Supremes

Speaking of the Supremes - this is airing tonight - Motown 60

.....

R67, you are a voice of reason. I agree with you. People have problems in our contemporary society that have critical issues in the inner cities, etc. Lets get to the root of these contemporary issues we need to deal with and some people in our nation have to deal with instead of a vicious cycle that doesn't resolve these problems.

Leave Kate Smith Alone!!! I love that lady! During World War 2 this lady up lifted Americans when people were feeling low and defeated at times. If a man is fat he is considered husky, a big guy, or now and then bold and forward in a masculine way. If a woman is fat she is considered FAT end of story. However, people used to look up to Kate Smith as a woman for strength,boldness and courage. That was not common to look to a woman that way in most eras in American history. My mother was a little kid in the 1940s and she said Kate Smith was considered a beacon of light during the war. Also, she is the fiber of American culture ,and she alone is one of many individuals who are considered an institution.

What is happing is dividing our country rather than bringing us together because this is pushing people to anger. You can remove everything in sight ,but the bottom line if someone wants to hate others, unfortunately they will hate regardless of a statue or whatever displayed in a public arena. Again, you think many statues and landmarks represent hate? You haven't seen anything yet because this will back fire on this movement to destroy history. There is this the notion that if all of these objects are removed, there is going to be this superb society which everyone will live in harmony. This is extremely naïve thinking and generally this is the doing of the tech and hipster millennials who, I'm sorry, are very, very clueless, accept when it comes to using computers.

BTW, we need ALL history and not to remove it. The super, great, good, bad ,and ugly to be part of our society to remind us about the story of America and to understand the journey that we have been on and the journey moving forward. Statues etc. have been around in various cities, states, etc. for generations. People have strived and broke the glass ceiling in numerous ways through out generations. However, contemporary belief is that statues etc. have the power over people's lives and hinder growth which is insane.The civil rights movement succeeded and no statue hindered growth. a statue, landmark, etc. have no power over you if you let.Let people use these various types of landmarks to remind us to spark conversations and to challenge our intellects. Also, many land marks, museums, and statues are tangible proof that there really once was a society which people thought, observed, and lived in a certain way which they once thought it was acceptable.

I took a sociology class once, and someone said in class, all of the plantations that had slaves should be torn down, and the Spanish missions as well because the natives built them. My professor was African American and he said, I totally disagree with that. Those buildings alone as homes and churches are beautiful architecturally speaking. Also, that is completely stupid to deal with the issues.

In addition, if you removed everything and let say, 500 years from now the subject might come up that there were once slaves etc. they might just say, well we don't have any tangible proof and it just might be a myth or fable and who knows if a society like that really existed.

Forgive my length of my post. Its just threads like this are very thought provoking and are very interesting.

BTW, I want to apologize for my punctuation errors and other technical writing flaws. I have a disability with the technical part of writing. I have to say, its very frustrating because I am like a caged in bird who wants to fly.I have a yearn to express just like the next person.

R93, thank you for posting that picture. I think that is disgusting! To warp cloth around that statue like that is so pathetic. I'm fed up and pissed! We are entering into the realm of the zone of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.

r93 is rather dystopian.

Here you go, something to think about. Are the decedents of the African American slaves owners are going to get reparations as well? After all, they are black.

[quote]. Are the decedents of the African American slaves owners are going to get reparations as well?

Why should they get anything? They're dead.

Here is more.

[quote] A black person singing this song gives it a completely different meaning to a white singer covering it. The former makes it seemelancholy and ironic, the latter makes it icky and racist.

All of these songs were intended to be sung by black singers -- "Darkies Never Dream", "Sleepy Time Down South", etc. I don't know why Fat Late felt the need to record them.

Check this out. This is much more complex than everyone likes you to believe. This is interesting.

The roughly black 35-40% of me is laughing my ass off at this. THIS! shit here:

^ The little black kids in that vid "Can you believe this shit?!!"

Judy Garland and Bing Crosby performed in blackface. Guess we now have to 86 The Wizard Of and White Christmas (WHITE Christmas!! So racist).

Yes, blackface and racist songs are cringeworthy. If somebody came out with shit like that now, it would be newsworthy. But in the '30s? It was de rigeur. We don't have to like it, but we can't deny it happened.

I love the racism is bigotry + power definition. It conveniently makes racism a black v white issue and totally ignores other races. Is a black person totally unable to be racist toward an Asian person?

R67.. Yes! I hate this side of liberalism. The real problems that exist aren't solved in banning songs, taking down statues, appropriation.. or whatever nonsense the SJW have to scream about.

... And reparations?? A big NO to that! If Democrats harp about that, that will hurt them.

[quote]BTW, we need ALL history and not to remove it.

Hyperbolic much? Getting rid of a fat old lady statue who enjoyed singing racist songs doesn’t remove history. It just stops glorifying her for perpetuating racism.

Did you cry when the statues of Stalin were torn down at the end of the old Soviet Union? Do you fear taking down a statue of a confederate general means the Civil War never happened?

FFS Kate Smith wasn't a racist. She sang a couple of songs about "pickaninnies" in the early 1930s like many other entertainers of that era did.

Friend worked at NBC in the 1950s and his job as a production assistant was to buy large furniture for the set for Kate's afternoon chat show. Bob hated her and said she cursed like a sailor and as you might expect, she hated gay men.

You may think l’m wearing a tin hat, but there are larger forces behind all this shit to create division in this country. The extreme left and extreme right both want to destroy the county as we know it, with plans to remake the nation in accord with their agendas.

Does anyone else notice how the extreme right is predominately men and the extreme left is predominately women? American politics is merely becoming male vs. female.

R94.. You said it perfectly. Love your comment.. totally agree.

Personally I think identity politics is a reaction by the upper middle class to the destruction of social mobility. They know the system is totally gamed in their favour, but don't want to admit it to themselves. So they support all the safely supressed minorities and protest ancient grievences yet are openly hostile to the working class.

Identity politics have always existed. It's called a caste system. The US has followed a caste system for most of its history.

r110 never happened

My grandmother had some Kate Smith LPs.

I listened to this song over and over. (Maybe a different version, can't remember.) I thought it was beautiful!

Did she ever address these songs? Surely they weren't popular in the 70's when she was still active.

I don't understand how this came up. Did someone randomly google Kate Smith after hearing her ponderous version of God Bless America once too often and discover these old chestnuts? These aren't exactly secret tracks.

Now mind you, as a longtime Yankee fan, I'm all for shelving GBA---and her version in particular. It's a holdover from the bad old days post-911 when America was scared shitless and needing comfort and bloviation. I'd like to think we're past that---but then again maybe we're not.

It just seems a little dumb the way this happened.

It's all about being Woker Than Thou, r119

She undoubtedly experienced fat shaming. In fact, everybody who's made a fat joke in this thread should be banned. In fact, I'm banning myself.

Time has already cancelled Kate Smith.

Kate Smith who? Is it possible to cancel someone if they are already irrelevant?

I noticed that revolutionary artists never get cancelled even if they did something horrible. Their talent usually outweighs their bad deed.

[quote]Did she ever address these songs? Surely they weren't popular in the 70's when she was still active.

People weren’t offended by such penny-ante bullshit like what someone did 40 years prior to that time, in spite of how they lived the subsequent 40 years.

Why Kate Smith is an American treasure! And those little Pickaninny children in the video upthread are so cute I just want to kiss all their sweet black faces. I'm all for coloreds having a better life so long as they stay in their own lane. Just ask my maid, Sophia.

r121, Carson once roasted Don Rickles with the line, "Watching Don Rickles' act is just as exciting as watching Kate Smith take a douche."

The Kate Smith stature has been taken down.

Sorry, but r128 is fucking ridiculous.

Is this real life? Are we really so short-sighted?

[quote]The Kate Smith stature has been taken down.

This whole thread is taking her stature down.

The statue, on the other hand....

Don't blame me, blame Autocorrect!

One has to wonder where this will all end. There's no logical reason to not just drag every artist associated with this material, many of whom aren't even white. Smith wasn't any more egregious than tons of other, more beloved people.

There just aren't enough people around who care about Smith to make a fuss R132 , meanwhile the truly egregious Michael Jackson's tattered reputation is defended to the hilt by his equally egregious fans. A star's longevity and protection from scandal is linked to how beloved they are, life just ain't fair, have you noticed?

Her family should sue and there should be a jury trial on the new Court TV. Sue to have the statue put back up.

Fuck her. She knew she those songs were racist.

r135 it was a totally different time. Those songs were popular entertainment, and sung by black entertainers as well as whites. As shocking as it is to us now, it wasn't a big deal back then.

The state song of Florida and Kentucky both referred to African-Americans as d*rkies, but they didn't drop the songs. They just updated the lyrics. Kate Smith's song list could have just been edited to remove the offending songs.

Here we go, these deranged lunatics are not going to be happy until we erase American history completely and be a nation that is just a void existence. In addition to removing landmarks and statues of various parts of American history, people's lives are being destroyed if he or she said any thing minor previously in their lives that they may have regretted or it was something that may have taken out of context.

Sadly we have entered a new age of McCarthyism. It doesn't matter what people were and are accused of, If this ferocious vicious group of people demonize you, and it may not be true, it doesn't matter because these bastards act like God having the finial say. Also, its easy to attack people who are especially dead.

[quote]A black person singing this song gives it a completely different meaning to a white singer covering it.

No, it doesn't. If you want to imagine a completely different meaning, that's nothing but your personal choice.

Out of her more than 50-year career they identified two objectionable songs -- songs that, quite unfortunately, were not objectionable at the time she recoded them. Is that the standard now? If at any point in your life you did or said anything now deemed offensive by the so-called "woke" crowd, you must be banned and banished. Absurd. Because the standard is very inconsistently applied.

Judy and Micky appeared on film in blackface,,,,must they also be 'non-personed'?

[quote][R135] it was a totally different time. Those songs were popular entertainment, and sung by black entertainers as well as whites. As shocking as it is to us now, it wasn't a big deal back then.

At the time she is purported to have sung those songs, they would have been considered racist, and there is limited evidence that any black entertainers sung them. The only support for this position is in the Washington Examiner, an utterly dubious source, and People:

Washington Examiner:

[quote]Yet, the song was likely satire. “That’s Why Darkies Were Born” was first performed in 1931 through “George White's Scandals,” a series of Broadway revues. Reports say the song was considered to be satire, and revues are known as a collection of sketches with typically satirical themes. Singer Paul Robeson, who was black, also performed the song. If “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” isn’t satire, the lyrics are inexcusable. As satire, it’s scathing, progressive commentary.

People:

[quote]While the words sound wildly offensive in 2019, there are some who theorize that the song was intended to be satirical, citing the fact that it was recorded with African-American artist Paul Robeson.

However, no support seems to exist for “Pickaninny Heaven” being any form of satire or having been sung by black entertainers.

Black singers routinely sang songs that would now be considered offensive, r142. Whites and blacks sang the same songs.

[quote]Black singers routinely sang songs that would now be considered offensive,

And they do today, too.

[quote]At the time she is purported to have sung those songs, they would have been considered racist, and there is limited evidence that any black entertainers sung them.

No and no.

Blackface and these types of songs were sung by legions of black entertainers on the vaudeville circuit. Don't go by articles written by Millennial fuckwits who did their "research" on Wikipedia five minutes before they wrote the damn article.

For r142 "Shine"

'Cause my hair is curly

Just because my teeth are pearly

Just because I always wear a smile

Like to dress up in the latest style

'Cause I'm glad I'm livin'

I take these troubles all with a smile

Just because my color's shady

That's why they call me Shine

Forgot link at r146

So why aren't all these fucking rappers being blackballed and erased for all their RECENT, vile, anti-homosexual vitriol and hate?

And I swear to GOD the first asshole to say "don't compare racism against blacks to homophobia"-----

[quote]Blackface and these types of songs were sung by legions of black entertainers on the vaudeville circuit. Don't go by articles written by Millennial fuckwits who did their "research" on Wikipedia five minutes before they wrote the damn article.

I did not go by articles written by Millennials or wikipedia. However, I also didn't spend hours researching when I initially saw this story break.

However, I'm tapping out. These songs and the use of some of this language is not clear cut. The degree to which it may or may not be derogatory and racist appears to vary significantly over a relatively short period of time during the early part of 20th century.

So basically, anyone or anything that existed prior to 2014 is problematic and should be canceled.

[quote]Judy and Micky appeared on film in blackface,,,,must they also be 'non-personed'?

THEY ARE NOT TAKING JUDY AWAY FROM US!

I WILL GO TO WAR OVER THAT!

I can see the point of not celebrating or promoting someone associated with racism and therefore not keeping statues commemorating them. Unfortunately this results in low hanging fruit like Smith being culled which then leads those who think we should accept everything in the past as historical and beyond further examination to apoplexy . The basis of political correctness is fair, unfortunately it is in the hands of people, we are imperfect as always. This is a massive pendulum swing for us, from a time when racism was the only game in town, it's bound to bemuse some and cause upset, but I think ultimately it's a cultural shift we needed. 'Political correctness gone mad!' was a phrase I first heard in the 80's, the fact it is still currency shows how slowly we adapt to the new.

If a person is cancelled, then it usually means they weren't that important to begin with. I haven't seen any notable people cancelled yet. Even Bill Cosby hasn't been cancelled per se.

Fred Astaire did blackface, I think it was in Holiday Inn. So no more Fred and Ginger movies?

All performers in those days, and the audiences, had an acquaintance with vaudeville and minstrel shows. It was part of their personal history, although vaudeville was over by then.

In White Christmas, there’s some preamble in the Mandy number about “how we miss those good old minstrel days,” and a horrible joke about shooting a dog. Guess what, times have changed.

This cancel culture thing doesn't seem real to me. Taking down a statue doesn't cancel someone. It's merely a symbolic gesture. I don't think cancel culture is real outside of Twitter. People on this thread are just being dramatic.

[quote]We are entering into the realm of the zone of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.

Except the real 1984’s biggest threat to our well-being as a nation was launching a Bill Cosby sitcom and a Tony Danza sitcom within 30 minutes of each other and letting them both drag on for eight painful years.

She was fat-shamed in this Looney Tunes short (around the 2:05 mark).

Reminds me of the recent Tracey Ullman sketch where they start blowing up all the controversial statues in case they offend.

In the '60s and '70s, I remember my mother and grandmother always talking about what a big ol' lez Kate "Caneface" Smith was. Looking back, it's odd how obsessed my mother was with pointing out potential lesbians around her.

One of the reasons that the movie "George White's Scandals" (1934 version) is not restored is because of this very same song which leads into a production number called "Pickin' Cotton", sung by Jimmy Durante in blackface and featuring chorus girls in black face being carried by men in baskets (the men are fake), and a huge mammy coming out who lifts her skirt, releasing the throng of dozens of "darkie" children. Private collectors have it, but I doubt it will ever see the light of day. The same year's "Wonder Bar" featured an Al Jolson number ("Goin' to Heaven on a Mule") which is huge and beautiful in scope, but tacky in the terms of today. However, the Turner Archives has released it. The documentary "It Came From Hollywood" (1982) utilized it in Gilda Radner's musical memories sequence as an example of Hollywood bad taste. (Other than a clip from "Sunny Side Up", Gilda made up information about the other sequences, usually a random moment from a bad B movie where someone happened to sing.)

I find the "George White's Scandals" to be the epitome of bad taste because of the motivations surrounding its visuals, but there is something about "Goin' to Heaven" which is quite profound in spite of the stereotypes which includes a pork chop grove, Hal LeRoy tapping out of a giant watermelon, and a huge heaven all in white and a tinier heaven all in black.

My guess is that she did not think too much about many of these lyrics and just say the songs. She is of a different era. Friends of mine who grew up in in the 1960s in Lake Placid NY where she had a home (and loved dearly) said she was one of the nicest people you could meet. Gave free concerts in the summer band shell on Mirror Lake- ate too many soft ice cream cones and bought for any children in eyesight- stories like that. I suppose we should censor all Judy Garland movies and recordings because one of her signature songs was Swanee, a love song for the old South.

R162 Even Al Jolson said about Judy singing his old songs (which includes "You Made Me Love You") that he'd rather have her sing them than anybody else. He may have been a mean S.O.B., but he had a soft spot for her.

I don't know if it's accurate to say that Smith didn't give much thought to what she sang, it's just that this stuff was not considered offensive in the way it is today. Many renowned singers sang these sorts of songs and composers composed them. It was a cultural problem, not the fault of one individual. Mores have just changed. There's a problem here when activism proceeds from just stumbling across a YouTube clip rather than true historical awareness.

I am glad someone mentioned Judy Garland and Swanee and perhaps Rockabye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody. I saw Garland sing The Battle Hymn of the Republican during Christmas week 1967 at Madison Square Garden.

Garland died 50 years ago.

,,,,

Some people like to nitpick about the silliest of things.

Meanwhile, Imam Farrakhan spews racist, antisemitic shit for decades, even to this day, and the black Democratic Congress embrace him with open arms.

Say she sang this song in 1939. That’s eighty years ago. That’s the same amount of time as between 1900 to 1980. Think about the changes between 1900 and 1980.

In 1900, we would be wearing corsets and stays, granny boots, big hats with taxidermied birds on them, or celluloid collars, black suits and bowlers or top hats, and paying calls in person.

No TV, refrigerator, microwave, radio, computers or calculators. No airplanes. Most people didn’t even have a phone in the country. Many people still drove horses and carriages. The majority of Americans were employed on farms.

1980: men and women both wore blue jeans, men wore long hair, people wore polyester shirts and nylon socks and had televisions, VCRs, radios, phones, cars. Planes were everywhere and men had landed on the moon. Most people did not live on a farm and thought milk came from a dairy.

That’s how long ago it was.

When they wrapped her state in a black sheet, is that blackface? Or cultural appropriation? I've lost track of all the crimes she's committed. You in danger, Kate.....

I watch The Jack Paar Program with Kate Smith on YouTube. Paar had left the Tonight Show for a prime program on Friday night. Smith was good as usal.

After she left. Jack Paar said, I have known her for a long time. Superb manners. It is always Mr. Parr and I respond Miss Smith.

It is ridiculous to judge Kate Smith by the standards of today. When she sang these song black-face minstrelsy was still considered mainstream entertainment, and remained in movies for decades, and Amos N' Andy was the biggest hit on radio. Now if she had specialized in singing racist songs, that would be one thing, but they have found two songs out of her vast discography. One of which was established as satire. The other song was from her movie debut, when she was in her 20s, I doubt she had much control over what she sang in the movie and was just happy that a large woman was given the opportunity to star in a Hollywood movie.

I feel bad for her family but am also glad she never found out about this trashing of her legacy.

R172, that brings up that at the time, the studios ran people’s lives, decided what hair color they would have, fixed their eyebrows, told them what to wear. They had no choice about anything that happened to them.

Performers signed a beginning contract for three movies and about three years, were paid next to nothing, and if they didn’t do it they could be sued. Renewing the contract depended on whether they did as they were told. People today don’t remember the studio system.

Do you think teenage Judy Garland wanted to take pills to get up, go to sleep and lose weight? They didn’t care. If she didn’t do it, she was finished.

Do you think black women wanted to play nothing but maids? It was that or nothing. Nobody had any say in the studio system.

r161: That "Cotton in the Cabin" number from GEORGE WHITE SCANDALS is pretty awful even by standards of the time. "Goin' to Heaven on a Mule" and Judy & Mickey's stunning "Blackout Over Broadway" in BABES ON BROADWAY stand out because of Busby Berkeley's design and direction.

Actually, rather than cancel old Kate they have probably generated more interest in her than anything in the last 30 years and it is not entirely negative.

I agree with R172 and R174. It is pretty despicable to besmirch Kate Smith some three decades after she died for two pieces of music from 80 years ago, at least one of which she likely had no control over. She's taking the fall posthumously for some studio hack's bad decision. But, the woke SJWs don't really care. They make the rules that everyone else is supposed to play by. They really want to rack up victories and the equities of the situation are irrelevant.

Also - "Franklin D. Rosevelt Jones" is one of Garlands most thrilling MGM numbers . When Berkeley pulls out from her them and comes in close for the finish...

"My friends....my friends...let's all shout hoooraaaaaaayyy!"

SHE raised todays equivalent of billions for the war at war bond rallies, which probably saved many black soldiers'lives.

Little Jane Withers gives out with two jaw-droppers from CAN THIS BE DIXIE? (1935)

At the end of her life, didn't Kate live in a penthouse atop the 42nd Street Motor Inn watching ocean liners come and go. Think she also got stuck in a bathtub for quite a while up there.

I would love to know the details of how this got started.

Who, exactly, thought “the Yankees are playing Kate Smith again! I wonder what I can dig up on her?”

What a queer logic you have r179. So increasing the debt load of US tax-slavers to fuel a satanist slaughter of millions - for the sole purpose of adding billion$ to the profits of the usury criminals who own the NY Federal Reserve Bank - was a good thing?!?!??!?!

This weekend I watched BBC and historian Lucy Worsley's American History's Biggest Fibs. Part 2 is about the Civil War and the before and after. Her documentary establishes that the Civil was was conceived and fought for several years out of economic interest. The North was battling The South over who would get culture dibs on the opening West. Would Western States to come, be slave owning or free. If they were slave owning, the North would loose a lot of money because the agricultural slave economy was VERY successful. Also, the value of 4 million slaves in the USA in 1960, was the USA MOST valuable commodity, worth trillions in today's dollars. Abraham Lincoln slowly became and abolitionist but he was only into equal rights 1 or 2 times. He said he would have been happy to keep the Union together and let the South Keep slaves. The only reason it turned into a saintly human rights cause was because the Union wasn't doing so well in the war. When Lincoln freed all the slaves, hundreds of thousands of black slave men became union soldiers.

The civil war had little to do with human slavery and everything to do with debt slavery. The North was drowning in debt imposed by the usury(aka interest charging) banks of the NE, municipal defaults were rampant. The usury banks installed their stooge, Lincoln, to oversee the violent (one million murders) confiscation of the then debt-free and very independent south. After the war the usury bankers installed their own stooges in the southern legislatures to vote millions in new debt. When Lincoln clashed with his banking backers (by issuing money direct from the treasury not borrowed from banks and also by supporting the back to africa movements to allow blacks to return to africa. There is only one reason that slaves are freed: because they are debt-free and can borrow new money into existence. "History", however, is written by the victors.

Always assumed Kate was lesbian.

Who was her GF?

Paul Robeson supported that homophobe Stalin. When’s he getting cancelled?

r184 and r185, all I know is that wars like to dress up in noble causes (we defeated the Nazis!) but they are ALWAYS about money.

Always.

R48 LMAO

When are they gonna go after Laura Hope Crews? I am sure she has stuff in her past that should condemn her from modern audiences.

The South isn’t the problem. The white race is the problem. All non-Jewish religion is the problem. Heterosexual perversion is the problem.

Edna May Oliver is sniffing in total disapproval.

I am appalled that this was done to Kate Smith. Yes, the songs are racist to us today. One is a send up of slavery that Paul Robeson even sang. The lyrics are offensive to us, but they reflect contemporary attitudes of the 1930s.

Kate Smith was not a racist. I remember her from my youth spent in Lake Placid, N.Y., where she had a camp on the lake. I would see her at St. Agnes's for Sunday Mass. Later, she was a resident of the nursing home that I volunteered at. She was rail-thin at the time.

Today's navel-gazing SJWs will not be satisfied until every person, past and present, toes their line of purity

I'm surprised Al Jolson wasn't banished... his movies never shown and existence erased. Blackface was part of his act. Someone up thread said this is the new McCarthyism.... so very true. McCarthyism of the 21st century. It really is ridiculous and a bit scary.

It's shit like this that's contributing to the real likelihood that Trump will be re-elected. Think about that SJWs.

Although I think some SJWs want Trump re-elected so they can get super-left person in office to follow Trump.

Also, r193, she had a TV show in the early ‘50s and was one of the first to put Josephine Baker on her show.

[quote] I remember her from my youth spent in Lake Placid, N.Y., where she had a camp on the lake.

BonniePrinceCharlie, I recently purchased a painting that had been in her Lake Placid residence. It is a landscape of Rock Creek Park here in DC.

I guess the SJWs would demand I get rid of it now. 🙄

It must be burned at the stake, r197. Merely throwing it away will not suffice. Sorry, not sorry.

Irene Dunne, you're next!

r198 is right -- there is something rather religious about the fanaticism with which the progressive left attempts to purify society.

;;;;

There's also something fanatical about you lot wanting to preserve the past in aspic R200

....

Who is Kate Smith?

Shouldn’t MLB be canceled as a whole then? After all, prior to Jackie Robinson, wasn’t their policy anti-black discrimination?

Fuck off with your PC nonsense, R60. Sorry to disappoint your hackneyed SJW worldview, but racism is not the sole prerogative of white people.

Chinese, Arabs and black Africans are among the most racist people I have ever met in my life, not to mention many gays and lesbians, unfortunately. And don't get me started on the genocidal Zionists in Israel, a racist nation if ever there was.

Racism is racism from wherever it spews. Anyone can be a racist. And no one gets a free pass.

R206 100 SJW's just had heart attacks reading your post. Good.

An excellent post, R169. How true.

Too many people today, and especially SJWs and their fucking tedious race- and gender-obsessed ilk, have zero concept of historical context.

I think events of the past few years highlight what a hateful species we are, we all hate each other's guts. We always have but the veil has dropped recently.

There’s racist shit happening every day in this country but everybody’s hung up on a song from 80 years ago.

I love you R206..

she was a fat cunt

Ted Danson got a pass for far worse.

R204, Kate Smith introduced a song written by Irving Berlin called “God Bless America.” Other people sag it but her version became the iconic version because she sang it in such a dignified and majestic way.

The song was written originally for WWI but Berlin cut it from a Broadway show he did at the time. He changed it slightly and introduced it in 1938, as Hitler began his aggression in Europe at the beginning of WWII, when it was a huge popular hit. Kate Smith sang it first on the radio in 1938, then later in a movie called This Is The Army, and on live radio programs, to help uplift soldiers serving abroad. They had radio shows during WWII where soldiers could put in their requests of songs they'd like sung live, God Bless America was a popular one, as well as Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. There was a lot of entertainment at that time reserved exclusively for soldiers.

She was seen as a sort of motherly presence, reassuring people that America was going to make it through the war and everything was going to be all right.

Berlin wrote a preamble to the song you don’t hear sung now, but Smith always sung it:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea

Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free

Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,

As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer."

This film clip from This is The Army gives you an idea how people felt at the time. This was similar to the way people felt around 9/11. They knew the shit had hit the fan. Scared but resolute. The movie came out in 1943, after the song was already famous on the radio, but this is the first time it was on film. The war was far from won then, and victory wasn’t certain.

Every family had a soldier overseas. Everyone knew it was going to be a hard fight, that’s what the song was about. Smith had many other hits and was a popular singer, but she’s known for this one. To Americans, this was like watching Mrs America saying a prayer for America.

'Every family had a soldier overseas' R214? I bet the Trump family didn't.

The song became so popular that once, when there was a movement to change the national anthem to something easier to sing, it was even discussed as a possible replacement to The Star Spangled Banner. Ultimately that didn’t happen, but Kate Smith made that song.

R215, the Trump family is well known for being generation after generation of draft dodgers. Trump’s grandfather or great-grandfather came to America to dodge the draft in Germany. No Trump has ever served in the U.S. military. They are a family of shirkers and cowards, just like Trump.

During WWII, any man not in uniform was mocked, ridiculed and considered a coward. The Army would take just about anybody. Trump’s father was probably too old already. He was born in 1905, so he would have been about 36 in 1941, so maybe he was just above the upper age limit. Or by the time his number came up, he would have been.

I’m sure even the Trumps knew soldiers, although they didn’t serve themselves. Everyone knew somebody.

I expect the Trumps did know soldiers R216 and though 'suckers!'

R217 'thought'

They were probably doing some scam to rip off soldiers.

People claiming "SJWs" don't understand history are pretty clueless about history themselves. Smith got her start singing racist songs that were popular on Vaudeville and as singles up until about the mid 1930s. They weren't satirical; they're more accurately called "novelty" songs, and even at the time were considered somewhat low class. By the mid to late 1930s they were mostly removed from movies and radio shows because they were too coarse and vulgar.

It wasn't so much that people were opposed to racism, but opposed to the coddling of good ol' Swanee-lovin' southerners who were still stinging from the War of Northern Aggression. Martha Raye movie from the 1930s has her appear in blackface, and the NYT says it's inappropriate because she's acting undignified. That's how people felt about it by then.

Smith changed her act and turned into an everyday rah-rah right-wing Republican, so by the time sports teams were using her song in the 1970s, most people had forgotten the southern-fried Vaudeville shtick and just thought of her as the "God Bless America" lady.

But think about it: if some team wanted a patriotic song here in 2019, would they pick an old singer whose second big Top 20 hit was a song about how blacks were born to be slaves and that's all they were good for? Nope.

So why does it bother you so much that teams in 2019 have decided they don't want to keep using those songs?

There's no cultural, moral, or historical reason for them to keep using the song. It's a sports tradition and that's it. That you're claiming it's some rewriting of history and a huge cultural blow is just... it's bonkers. I don't understand any of you saying that.

Someone should track down her relatives and sue them for reparations.

* the NYT "said" it was inappropriate, not "says"

It's from an old review of the movie, I didn't mean to imply the NYT had a recent opinion on some 80-year-old Martha Raye vehicle.

^^ And track down Irving Berlin’s, too, because he wrote the song that the racist lady sang. And the musicians who played the accompanying music.

R214 Every time I see that clip, I get teary-eyed. She sang it simply, but with heart. Modern Americans need to open theirs, and wipe away the cobwebs off of their brains.

[quote]Chinese, Arabs and black Africans are among the most racist people I have ever met in my life

It wasn't that long ago that DL had threads that had actual discussion, not a bunch of hyperaggressive borderline trolls who insist that their personal biased experiences are universal truths.

What a mess this thread is.

R225: What do you not get about pointless bitchery?

This is Judy Garland in 1938, the same year Kate Smith sang that song.

It's not pointless bitchery when people are repeating right-wing talking points and getting incredibly emotional about the topic, as though this was not only hurting their feelings but changing their lives.

Maybe you have the more excitable DLers on ignore already and just aren't seeing it?

So pointing out that there are different forms of racism around the world and that they are all bad is a “right-wing talking point”?

Nobody is saying a sports team has to play a given song if they don’t want to. But Kate Smith was a decent person for her time and smearing her to make a talking point eighty years later is just making a cheap shot. She was well known to be a kind person, and anybody that knows about the studio system of her time knows performers had no power at the time and did what they were told or were blackballed. Same with the recording and radio industries, business. Sing it or you’re done. Even Woody Guthrie was fired for singing a song on the radio that the boss didn’t like. And 1938 was still during the Depression. Work was work.

Performers today have much more choice about what they perform.

Do you really think Judy Garland wanted to do that ugly blackface number at R227? She was a pretty girl and was unrecognizable. She had no choice. Nobody had any choice.

Yes it is R229 because it deflects from the racism being talked about here,' everything is terrible everywhere so it's every man for himself' the right wing in you likes that, also it likes 'SJW' bashing, but you are just the opposite of the ' SJW's you hate, which I suppose is ultimately pointless, so I suppose this thread is pointless bitchery after all.

Personally I thinl it's silly that we have to sing The Star Spangled Banner at every game, never mind God Bless America. The issue is that if we cancel Kate Smith there's no real reason not to cancel Judy, Bing, Louis Armstrong, and every other artist and songwriter associated with these kinds of songs. That's a big chunk of muaical history. Seems counter-productive and in a bizarre way avoidant of an actual awareness and reckoning with our past.

Fred Astaire did a black face number in a movie. Lots of people did them.

You can’t judge somebody’s entire life based on a performance. Especially back then when performers were employees with ironclad contracts. Do it or be sued.

Covering the statue because you just can't stand to see her mug a second longer, as if that will magically solve racism...it just reminds me of John Ashcroft covering the topless statue in the White House. What silly children we've become.

The thing is time is cancelling all these classic performers anyway, so whatever they did in the past that people find offensive today will be immaterial very soon, and sadly that includes Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. Aficionados will always treasure them but their status as household names is evaporating fast. I'm a great fan of the Golden Age but can see that huge stars of yesteryear have been totally forgotten, the first pop star, Rudy Valee , massively famous in his day would be unknown to 99% of the public now and , as far as I know, he was untouched by scandal.

No one said removing the statue would solve racism. The statement said no such thing, and no one (except trolls and maybe some excitable types) actually believes it "solves racism."

You're exaggerating to create a strawman, which you then argue against. Why not talk about what was actually said: that the team praised their previous association with her and the song but feel it's no longer something that represents their franchise?

I guess because addressing THAT would mean you'd have nothing to get angry about.

[quote]So pointing out that there are different forms of racism around the world and that they are all bad is a “right-wing talking point”?

That's a trollish question. I never said that, and I'm not the person earlier in the thread who "answered" this.

I "answered" it R237 and it was a troll question.

Has Tod Browning been canceled yet?

Bless you r239 - one of our FAVORITE JUDY sequences!

Did she really die choking on a ham?

I'm talking about covering the statue for the couple days before they were able to remove it. As if looking at some draped Abu Ghraib figure lightens the offense.

"Solves racism" was obvious hyperbole, but the entire way this was addressed was ham-handed and done in the most expedient way possible.

Who came up with this "canceling" concept? A SJW Nielsen family member?

R244, five year olds. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. If I have a big enough tantrum, they can’t ignore it forever.

Amen to that! Tantrums indeed.

Again , you lot are pearl clutching over 'cancelling' things that are ancient, barely looked at history ........ Todd Browning!?!?!? The SJW malarkey is no more ridiculous than your reaction to it.

You don't seem very bright, r247.

The issue is revisionist history claiming someone who was known to be nice was evil, long after she’s dead with no way to defend herself.

People are already saying Bill Clinton was 1000x evil with no redeeming qualities. Anyone who lived through that era knew they got a job, or kept a job, because of him. There was a horrible recession going on when he was elected and people cared about jobs more than anything. But today, he’s a monument to the #metoo movement. God forbid anyone ever makes a statue of him anywhere.

R248 You are definitely a cunt, no seem about it x

[quote]Personally I thinl it's silly that we have to sing The Star Spangled Banner at every game, never mind God Bless America.

Amen to this. There’s already too much OTT patriotism at ballgames. And don’t get me started on the “God” business.

Some of us care about history R247. Though with humanities depts & funding being slashed left & right I expect attitudes like yours to become the norm.

Was Seinfeld canceled, Jerry?

You can care 'til your pretentious heart bursts R252 that has no bearing on the hysteria greeting an almost forgotten figure being 'cancelled'. According to the thrust of this thread history is in peril as SJW types will 'cancel' it all. Your love of history should show you that even when 'cancelling' was govt policy and books were blazing, history did not forget the authors.

In the long march of history r252, I suspect that Kate Smith will not be sorely missed.

That's exactly the point - Smith can be cancelled becaise she's a relatively unimportant and forgotten figure today. I never cared much about her myself. Bit her sins are no more egregious than those of Astaire, Garland, Berlin or tons of other people.

When I say I care about history I mean I care about a serious and honest accounting and reckoning with America's racist past. Not expedient lip service tp cover your ass, which is what this is.

Has history ever been recounted honestly R256? History, as we know, is always written by the victors.

Forgive the typos, I'm stupidly trying to type this shit on a phone

If you want to reach back eighty years to attack a dead celebrity, how about Charles Lindbergh? He was allegedly a Nazi sympathizer. There’s probably statues of him around somewhere.

I've heard hideous details about George Washington.

We had 12 Presidents of the United States who were slave owners. Are we going to cancel all of them as well?

George Washington had slaves in Philadelphia where the White House was. Pennsylvania had a law granting freedom to slaves who stayed over a certain # of months. Washington specifically made and effort to move his slaves to VA for a short visit, right before they would be free. Then bring them back as slaves.

We need to cancel Washington DC, the monument, all of it. I do believe white Americans should shut down shop, and immigrate back to Europe, and leave the wealth of the USA to African Americans who can trace genetics to USA slavery. All other blacks can just shut up of course. Gross prejudice against the Irish, Italians, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, etc, well, tant pis. Obviously everything is owed to people descended from American black slaves. The Africans slave descendants can have it all and spend it at Native American casinos. Until the Native Americans have ALL the wealth, as it should be, and the slave descendent blacks themselves can return to Africa.

Did I fix this?

You're welcome.

Kate Smith worked her fat ass off for the US war effort during WWII. She did a lot for this country.

No, sorry, she was doing a lot for the psychopaths who own the NY Federal Reserve Bank and for their fellow psychopaths in the MIC.

April 29, 1942:

“As her contribution to national morale and the fund-raising campaign of the United Service Organizations [now commonly known as the USO], Kate Smith yesterday signed a one-dollar contract with Columbia Pictures to make a series of musical shorts under the general title "America Sings With Kate Smith."”

Well, FUCK these people, whoever they are. Kate Smith is an American icon!

She was my father’s favorite singer and I still have his records which are stored in my attic someplace. I fondly remember him listening to them while he sipped his brandy.

People live to be offended these days.

I think she has a pissed off relative somewhere maybe.

I doubt a 'Who loves Kate Smith?' thread would have had this much interest.

People are allowed to be offended and voice their opinions. The organizations don't have to listen.

Disrespectful to an American legend.

R206 Excellent posting. It's bullshit to cancel a great artist just because she sang a couple of stupid songs 85 YEARS AGO!!!! One of the songs was performed in a movie and she was under contract to sing it. There is no evidence that she was personally a racist.

You do know that being "canceled" is just slang, right? Her albums aren't banned and you're not forbidden to buy or listen to her songs and radio shows. I think some of you believe she has been officially banned or something.

You don't know of any examples of Kate Smith being racist because you don't know anything about Kate Smith.

There's a book called Kate Smith Speaks: 50 SELECTED ORIGINAL RADIO SCRIPTS, 1938-1951 which mentions that CBS wouldn't allow her to talk about certain topics such as race, and were angry when she would go into political rants. You can find examples of her calling herself centrist or conservative, and speaking about the evil godless communist menace in our back yards that the liberals don't worry about enough, not like she does, because she's a good American.

It's on Google Books and you can read quite a bit there. Search for the word "soviet" in the book and read her rant about how people who want to keep the separation of church and state preserved are probably communist agitators.

Also, it doesn't take long to find plenty of examples of her joining in with people like Anita Bryant in anti-hippie demonstrations, being pals with Nixon, being a Southern Christian, and other biographical bits that would point to her being conservative, and likely as racist as other conservatives of the time were.

No one here has even looked Smith up on Wikipedia, let alone looked anything up about her private life or political beliefs. You hadn't thought about Kate Smith in decades, if ever. You're just old men doing the same thing old American men have always done: yelled at clouds and those damn kids today because you're scared of change.

I admit that ““Eldergay” doesn’t begin to address my age. Think of me as one of the very few remaining “Methuselah gays”. When I was in college, one of my classmates was the orphaned niece and ward of Kate Smith. Frequently, Ms. Smith would show up on campus and take Susan and a few friends to lunch. Her annoying social and political positions notwithstanding, Smith was a doting aunt and surprisingly charming hostess.

Where is Besarionis dze JughashvilI when you need him?

There are good reasons to believe that the whole "Dinah Shore is a Negro" stories started with Smith. When sexy, shapely Shore first came on the scene around 1941she scored a huge hit on the radio and was soon dubbed the "new Songbird from the South" getting more lucrative contracts, higher ratings and better scheduling, and more than a few journalists of the time noted she was replacing Smith as a radio favorite. Sweet on-stage Kate was a mean, killer bitch in her professional life and I don't think she would have been above spreading rumors about her young rival. The rumors started in the early '40s and didn't hurt Shore a bit , but they dogged the Russian-Jewish Shore all her life. At one point Shore dealt with them in the classiest way possibl. When asked if she was "part-Negro" she replied "Oh, gosh! I sure hope so!"

R235... TCM helps to keep their legacies alive. Even younger people are introduced to past performers/stars. They have a new audience.

I so enjoy when past figures are judged by the standards of today !

I hope Plato and Aristotle are next

I get the whole uproar over Christopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson. But Kate Smith? Especially when people have to dredge up 80-year old allegations, the way that R277 did. "Good reasons to believe" is hardly sufficient to put forth an unsubstantiated rumor.

[quote]At one point Shore dealt with them in the classiest way possible. When asked if she was "part-Negro" she replied "Oh, gosh! I sure hope so!"

I never realized Dina Shore was such a cool (or clever) person.

Kate Smith started Dinah Shore rumors, so sayeth the one who is starting Kate Smith rumors based on absolutely nothing but random speculation.

Mark Steyn is spot on.

Her autobiography, Upon My Lips a Song, is a hoot. It's a slim volume. She spends the first half describing her rapid if rocky rise to fame. Bert Lahr was perfectly awful to her when she had the misfortune to play a character called Tiny Little. She begged him to lay off the fat jokes the night her grandparents came to see the show. He was so mad, he laid into her with double force on the fat jokes that night. Her grandparents begged her to quit show biz.

Soon enough though, she was rich and famous, and the Cowardly Lion could go fuck himself. She spends most of the rest of her life story humble bragging about her massive success. The second half of the book is like a prequel to Joan Crawford's chef d'oeuvre, My Way of Life. Among her useful tips for living aimed at the lady reader, Kate stresses the importance of good foundation garments in making yourself presentable to the world at large. The book would be minor DO classic, were it as widely read as Kate was widely spread.

I doubt that Kate Smith was a raving racist. She was a good friend with Eleanor Roosevelt, who was anything but. However, she was raised in the south at a time when white people simply accepted it as gospel truth that they were superior to black people. Hard to overcome that kind of upbringing completely. (Frankly, it wasn't much different in the north at that time). Absent other evidence of overt racism, I'm going to say that the fairest thing to say about her was that she was grossly insensitive.

Steyn is a right-winger who conveniently ignores real Republican racism, but he makes excellent points about Smith, Crosby and Jenner and the Democratic party.

R284, I don't agree with everything Mark says , but much of what he says is very insightful. I also find him very hot and want him in me deeeply.

She's a great lady.

I don't even know who she is, but that song is horrible. The lyrics are shockingly bad.

That said, I am a bit worried about rewriting history. That's the only we learn from it. Isn't it better to just let the song live, and never make that mistake again?

Justin Bieber was forgiven for far, far worse.