There are few things in life that remind me more of Catholic school culture than the beginning of sporting events. The invitation to rise and remove one’s cap is the call to prayer, and the national anthem reinforces the notion that there is a larger, benevolent force at work.

For nearly 50 years, Kate Smith has served as the high priestess of the Flyers’ pregame patriotic pageantry. Her psalm of choice was not “The Star Spangled Banner,” but rather the Irving Berlin classic, “God Bless America”. Smith became something of a good luck charm for the Flyers, so much so that the organization continued to play a recording of her performances three decades after her death.

If you have ever attended a Flyers game of any consequence, you will have been treated to Lauren Hart singing “God Bless America,” with footage from Smith’s rendition of the song during a 1974 playoff series against the Boston Bruins spliced into the performance, making for an interesting, if awkward, duet:

On Easter Sunday, the Flyers formally announced that they had ended their association with Smith. Her crime had been exposed earlier in the week by Stefan Bondy, a reporter for the New York Daily News, who was investigating why the Yankees had abruptly dropped Smith’s “God Bless America”, a 7th-inning stretch staple for the organization. Bondy wrote:

“Smith was a famous singer before and during WWII who recorded the offensive jingle, ‘Pickaninny Heaven,’ which she directed at ‘colored children’ who should fantasize about an amazing place with ‘great big watermelons,’ among other treats. She shot a video for that song that takes place in an orphanage for black children, and much of the imagery is startlingly racist. She also recorded, ‘That’s Why Darkies Were Born,’ which included the lyrics, ‘Someone had to pick the cotton. … That’s why darkies were born.’

Smith, who died in 1986, endorsed the ‘Mammy Doll’ in 1939, which was based on a racist caricature of a black woman in the same vein as Aunt Jemima.

In an interview with Steve Trevelise on New Jersey 101.5, Bondy shared that a fan had tipped off the Yankees to Smith’s controversial music. The report appeared in the Daily News on April 18. The next day, the Flyers had moved to cover a statue of Smith that once stood outside the Spectrum before taking up residence along a path that leads from Xfinity Live! to the Wells Fargo Center. The organization removed the statue on Sunday.

Flyers fans, and anyone who has been paying moderate attention to the sports news cycle in this city in the past week, are likely very familiar with this story and have settled in a camp. Maybe you agree with 97.5 The Fanatic’s Natalie Egenolf:

Or maybe your thinking is more along the lines of Tony Bruno’s outraged response:

https://twitter.com/TonyBrunoShow/status/1120159045992816640

No matter where you stand, it’s worth considering the facts behind the controversy and why the Flyers arrived at their swift decision to dump Smith.

We live in a “ready, fire, aim” culture that reinforces our natural tendency to slip into indignation and righteousness. We’re told to pick a side. Conservative or Liberal? Stephen A. Smith or Max Kellerman? Antonio Brown or Ben Roethlisberger? Nick Foles or Carson Wentz? The notions that a topic might be complicated, extend beyond the simplistic framing of a binary choice, and worth some thought before forming a position are luxuries none of us can afford in a social media world that values the instantaneous over the deliberative.

And that’s a shame, because this Kate Smith controversy presents an opportunity to have a meaningful discussion about the ways in which we reckon with our past- if we’re brave enough to engage it honestly.

Most importantly, the reporting of this story has been lackluster, and that’s putting it generously. Take the initial New York Daily News article, for example. Bondy spends his entire feature painting Smith as a racist, complete with a random selection of two lines from “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” before informing his readers that the song “was considered satire at the time and recorded with African-American artist Paul Robeson.” No matter, though. The author helpfully informs his audience that the lyrics are nonetheless “neither humorous nor ironic in 2019.”

Notwithstanding the dishonest framing and gratuitous editorializing, Bondy leaves his readers dangling at the end of the passive voice hook. Considered by whom to be satire? Other posts and articles I have read have adopted this evasive phrasing without providing further context.

“That’s Why Darkies Were Born” was first performed in 1931 in a Broadway variety show called George White’s Scandals. Having listened to the song a few times, I can appreciate the ways in which the music and the lyrics undermine some of the racial stereotypes Smith has been accused of perpetuating. The tune begins with a somber beat that describes the unfair burden that has been placed on black folks, before the resignation: “Accept your destiny.”

The music then transitions into a more uplifting beat, during which the offensive lyrics are repeated. The penultimate verse transitions back to a doleful sound, and includes the following lines:

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.

If you can get past the antiquated reference to black folks that has evolved into a racially insensitive term in the intervening 89 years, you can see the ways in which the song is very much in the tradition of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” or the sentiments expressed in Ralph Ellison’s prologue of Invisible Man. In short, the song highlights the ways in which black Americans were forced to disguise their true feelings behind a happy facade in order to survive in a world that was built by them, but not for them. In this context, the future civil rights activist Robeson’s decision to record the song himself makes more sense.

“Pickaninny Heaven” proves to be much harder to defend. The song was featured in a movie that Smith made in 1933. Judging by the performance, the tune was intended to be hopeful and positive, but it’s aged very poorly. By today’s standards, it certainly meets the threshold for racial insensitivity.

But there’s the catch: is it fair to judge people who lived in a different era by standards that have evolved since they have departed from the earth? This is the argument ESPN analyst Will Cain advanced on First Take, which his colleague Mina Kimes rebutted:

Inclined as I am to agree with Kimes about the dangers of the slippery slope, I don’t think she fully appreciates the tenuous terrain on which her case-by-case argument rests. Kate Smith’s turn on the hot seat, for example, has been completely arbitrary and the verdict rendered quickly. The offensive songs that have diminished her reputation in the past week have been readily available on Youtube for years (“Pickaninny Heaven” has since been removed), though no one from the Flyers franchise seemed interested in correcting the wrong of associating the organization with her. But then, after one article and in the space of three days, she has essentially been erased from Flyers history, an obstacle to be removed in the name of preserving the team’s commitment to the Hockey is for Everyone (With Money) Campaign.

It was an easy decision, but not a particularly courageous one. In the grand scheme, Smith was a minor figure in Flyers history. She can be jettisoned in the name of tolerance without the franchise, the NHL, or the fans clamoring for her head having to wrestle with the culture from which Smith came.

Maybe we can celebrate our victory against racism over breakfast. The Mammie stereotype has been defeated- now where is that Aunt Jemima pancake mix?

Too often, the case-by-case approach claims smaller victories while avoiding larger fights against more worthy targets. Our collective policing of “acceptability” is subjective, ever-changing, and frequently dependent on the size of the target in question.

Ultimately, I don’t particularly care about the permanent suspension of the Kate Smith “God Bless America” ritual. If it were up to me, I would do away with all of these pregame displays of performative patriotism that imbue ultimately meaningless sporting events with a solemnity they have not earned and do not deserve. Moreover, further investigation into Smith’s life might reveal that her removal was warranted.

What’s more interesting to me is the way we view people who live in the past. Maybe the lesson from this little drama is that we should stop immortalizing humans with bronze statues. We are all a product of the times in which we live, for better and for worse. It’s a fact we might all do well to remember as we anticipate the judgmental gaze of those who come after us.