donsurber.blogspot.com New York Yankees beclown themselves
Rudyard Kipling lived in New York City in the early 20th century. He considered the abject poverty of the Bowery worse than Bombay. He was "impressed and moved by the Jews," who were very patriotic and optimistic.
Which leads me to the story of Israel Beilin, who was born in Imperial Russia before his parents hauled him and their seven other children to America. All he remembered of his five years as a Russian was the cossacks burning down their house in the middle of the night.
His education ended when he was 8. He hit the streets and hawked the Evening Journal newspaper. Once a crane knocked him into the river. They barely got him out, but he still clutched the five pennies he earned that day.
Later, he sang songs on the streets for pennies. He had it good when a restaurant in Chinatown hired him as a singing waiter. He made up parodies of popular songs.
Finally he wrote the song, "Marie from Sunny Italy," and pocketed a whopping 33 cents in royalties.
They also misspelled his name.
But he was patriotic and optimistic. Four years later, he wrote a song that became an international hit (and later the title of a movie starring Don Ameche). His song kicked off the ragtime music fad.
The hits kept coming. By age 30, he was a millionaire.
The Army drafted him for the Great War. They assigned him to Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, where he entertained the troops by writing a musical review, "Yip Yip Yaphank." He wrote one song that didn't quite fit the musical. He set it aside.
For 20 years.
Then came Hitler.
Irving Berlin -- the name changed to match the spelling error earlier -- dusted his old song off, turned it into a hymn, and had Kate Smith debut the song, "God Bless America."
Of the 1,500 songs he wrote -- including "Alexander's Ragtime Band", "Easter Parade", "Puttin' on the Ritz", "Cheek to Cheek", "White Christmas", "Happy Holiday", "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)", and "There's No Business Like Show Business" -- this was his favorite song.
Which brings me to New York Yankees.
The Washington Times reported, "The New York Yankees‘ anti-racism efforts have extended to pulling from their seventh-inning stretch a famous recording of the legendary Kate Smith singing 'God Bless America.'
"Not because anyone has complained that the song is racist, but because Smith recorded other racially-insensitive standards from and during the Jim Crow era. The Yankees pulled Smith’s 'God Bless America' from the rotation at the start of the season, but the New York Daily News reported the reason Thursday — 'the Yankees were made aware of Smith’s history of potential racism.'"
Tell me again, how many black players did the Yankees have in 1938?
Will the team surrender its world titles when it was as Jim Crow as the buses were in Birmingham, Alabama?
One of Smith's early hits was "That's Why Darkies Were Born."
Its lyrics included:
Someone had to pick the corn,
Someone had to slave and be able to sing,
That's why darkies were born. 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. You know who else sang it and had a hit?
Paul Robeson.
Maybe we should banish him, too.
You cannot change history, but you can make a fool of yourself.
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