KATE SMITH, LIMITATIONS, FIRST STONES, AND NATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

RELIVING A HARMFUL PAST

Decisions by two venerable sports franchises cutting off their relationships with the work

of the late singer Kate Smith reminded us how much good a look in the mirror and back at history can do. Many humans engaged in past behaviors they’re not proud of and might not like being judged by today’s standards, as that incident demonstrated.

 

Recently, the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League and Major League

Baseball’s New York Yankees announced they’d no longer play Kate Smith’s recordings of God Bless America in connection with their games. The Flyers also removed a statue of Smith from the front of their arena.  Both team acted afer a fan discovered and advised them of racist songs  Smith recorded during

the 1930s. Since the September 11 attacks, the Yankees had played Smith’s God Bless America during the seventh inning stretch of games. The Flyers had a long time association with Smith, who died in 1986, and considered her a good luck charm during their championship run in 1974.  

 

The songs, Pickaninny Heaven and That’s Why Darkies Were Born, included lyrics like “someone had to pick cotton … That’s why darkies were born.” One said “Old Black Joe is their Santa Claus” when referring to African-American children. Another lyric mentioned “great big watermelons” and “mammy waiting.”

Limitations: how old is too old?

As lawyers, we understand the concept of limitations – the principle that the time for bringing complaints must end sometime. Nearly every criminal and civil statute includes a limitations period. After “X” number of years, one can’t be prosecuted or civilly pursued for certain offenses. 

Statutes of limitations recognize the

difficulty of pursuingstale claims. After some period of time, moving on better serves the interests of justice than pursuit of a claim, no matter how meritorious.  

The Smith case raises the question of cultural and political limitations. When is it just too late for penalizing someone or something for an old bad act?  Reports indicated Smith first recorded That’s Why Darkies Were Born in 1931 and Pickaninny Heaven in 1933. Certainly the world has changed since then and many asked if cutting Smith’s God Bless America from the programs at Flyers’s and Yankees’s games now served a useful purpose. 

Both teams, however, made a strong case for their actions. The Yankees emphasized how they “take social, racial, and cultural insensitivities very seriously.” The Flyers said the lyrics of the old songs include “sentiments that are incompatible with the values of our organization” and added that the team could not “stand idle while material from another era gets in the way of who we are today.” We understand these imperatives and recognize their powerful import.  

Our own skeletons

Smith’s family jumped to her defense, asserting that she wasn’t a racist and her past should not be held against her. Thinking about that, however, prompted some personal soul searching. What do we have in our past we aren’t proud of today?  What about our friends and neighbors? Our readers?

Two subjects immediately came to mind – gender and sexual orientation.  Without going into the details, each of us admit we have held attitudes, said things, and done things that disrespected women and gays and lesbians. We know we’d have some explaining to do if, for example, we ran for public office and these matters became public. People out there know about our bad acts, thoughts, and comments. In this age of social media, a few would come out of the woodwork.

Thinking about this topic raised the issue of

personal growth. Our bad acts, thoughts, and comments didn’t stem from bad motives; mostly they were about ignorance. We didn’t understand or appreciate people different from us and we labored under old, accepted conventions of thought.  We never considered the hurt we could cause. We grew out of these attitudes and, even if we aren’t perfect now, we have a much better sense of how our behavior affects others.

Having grown up in, and gone to school in, the second half of the 20th century, all of us observed and studied social movements -- the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement. They all emphasized changing minds and hearts – persuading people they should see the world differently.  Sometimes they based their appeal on moral imperatives and sometimes it rested on enlightened self-interest. Changing attitudes toward a particular group might make your own life better.

No matter the motive to which people respond, social movements seek changes in attitudes. The other side of that coin, however, carries a warning. If people grow and change as a movement seeks, some understanding of and toleration for prior attitudes and behavior should come with the territory.

We’d guess almost everyone in America has done something, thought something, or said something they’d like having back because it was ethnically, racially, sexually, or otherwise insensitive. 

Does this mean that Kate Smith should be given a pass? Rob suggests perhaps so.  He answers this through the eyes of faith, saying, “The case of Kate Smith and the pro sports franchises reminds me of the wisdom in John 8:7: ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’”  

Henrys agrees the teams got it right, but declines going as far as Woodson.

Woodson examines the question though the eyes of history and politics. “Because of the very harmful nature of Kate Smith’s words and the widespread publication of them, I do not think there is a moral equivalency between what a private citizen says or does in private conversations as compared to public utterances of a public figure such as Kate Smith. 

“The Jewish experience in Germany provides a better answer. Ironically during the same time that Kate Smith was bellowing her lyrics about African Americans, singers in Germany were in 1934 bellowing similarly offensive rhetoric about the Jews. ‘Put the Jews up against the wall … throw the Jewish gang out of the German fatherland, send them to Palestine, once there – cut their throats so that they will never come back.’ Not only have the writers of such lyrics been banished in current day Germany, it is now a

crime to publically sing a song identified with Nazi Germany.  The First Amendment

prevents us from punishing anyone in America for singing songs such as the ones Kate Smith made popular; but the Flyers and Yankees acted appropriately in taking down the statue and not honoring her with the use of her voice at their sporting events.” 

Like the Jew, African Americans want never to forget history less it repeats itself,” Woodson says.   

THE DOLLARWAY SYNDROME: RACE, INDIVIDUAL GOODWILL, and the CONTINUING STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY

This time Rob introduces an idea he's developing for a book. We'll explore it with him over the coming months.

Fifty plus years ago, I first observed something in American race relations I've never forgotten. I now call what I saw the Dollarway Syndrome. I noticed it while attending Dollarway, the Pine Bluff, Arkansas high school from which I graduated in 1969. I didn't call my observation the Dollarway Syndrome then. Naming it and getting an understanding of it required college, graduate school, law school, and the ensuing 50 years of living. Even though I can now define and describe it, explain its manifestations, and offer conjecture about what it means, I continue grappling with why it exists and how we deal with it individually and as a nation.

A Definition 

The Dollarway Syndrome is the inclination of white Americans to treat individual  black Americans with respect, kindness, civility, and compassion while, at the same time, supporting and espousing political and social policies and outcomes that oppress black people. After a rough start, at Dollarway I found acceptance, companionship, and caring. High school for me turned out like high school should — a time of personal growth and exploration punctuated by special memories, with a few enduring friendships thrown in for good measure.  I also saw and experienced insensitivity, cruelty, and hostility directed at an entire people. Many of my classmates loudly expressed indifference or even glee at the killings of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy and championed the political causes of George Wallace and other Southern human right violators.

King and Kennedy - 1963

In the intervening years, I've seen this duality in the workplace, sports, business, interpersonal relations, and other facets of American life. That such phenomena exist and thrive remains disconcerting. Exploring this now represents a late-in-life effort at getting my arms around it and offering a perspective those who've observed and experienced the Dollarway Syndrome might find helpful.

Changing Times

Since I noticed the Dollarway Syndrome, I've seen great racial change in America, including the end of de jure segregation, a rising black middle class, election of the first black President of the United States, and increasing incidence and acceptance of interracial marriage. These and other changes in America's racial picture signal progress toward equity and a just society. Nevertheless, the United 

States remains a nation troubled by racial discord, with significant gaps between blacks and whites in wealth, income, educational achievement, professional advancement, political strength, and other indicators of status and power. The Dollarway Syndrome persists and, in my view, promotes marginal progress while preventing real equity.

What I've seen also counsels that I accept the challenge of exploring how those who care about creating a just society can make the Dollarway Syndrome serve that goal. White people otherwise hostile to black political and social progress, in their respectful and civil treatment of individual blacks, show a capacity for finding common ground with those seeking societal change. Woodson argues racial 

justice requires finding allies who can see improving America's racial landscape as in their best interest or in the best interest of the country. They view it that way despite the continuing prevalence of partisanship, racial isolation, and tribalism. Woodson's notion prompts an important question: How do blacks and whites form alliances that can extract America from the racial ruts in which we've found ourselves since my Dollarway days?

The last ten years have shown us hope and despair on matters of race. Barack Obama's election in 2008 provided  

the tantalizing, if ultimately false, hope of a colorblind society. During Trump’s first years, we've seen ugliness we thought we'd left behind. Obama's ascension and what's happened early in the time of Trump, signal opportunity and challenge. They show what we can do and what we haven't done. By looking through the prism of the Dollarway Syndrome and its maddening duality, perhaps we can see how we build on the opportunities while tackling the challenges.

The Personal Part

My history affects my view of this. I was born at the tail end of

the Jim Crow era and grew up in a small, segregated Arkansas town. I experienced the good fortune of being the child of educated parents who cherished learning, promoted hard work, and, by example, steered me away from hate. They kept their eyes open for injustice, but believed in the promise of better days and taught me optimism, not hopelessness. Partly because of them, I kept seeking education, which has served me well and shielded me from much of the world's harshness.

Race, however, always lurked in the background of my life. What I experienced and observed at Dollarway never left my consciousness. Things have changed, but, then again, they've stayed the same. That fact informs and defines my exploration of the Dollarway Syndrome.

Perhaps readers have experience with the Dollarway syndrome.  We invite them to share.