Kate Smith's statue removed from Flyers arena over past racist lyrics

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Flyers Remove Kate Smith Statue Over Racist Lyrics

It’s never too late to right a wrong when it comes to the public celebration of racist white folks.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve reported on numerous confederate statues that have been removed in various cities in the United States.

Today, surprisingly, an NHL hockey team decided to do the right thing by removing a problematic monument from their team’s arena. According to CNN, the statue of singer Kate Smith was covered and eventually removed from outside the Wells Fargo Center after racist lyrics from her past songs came to light. Smith began performing the National Anthem at Flyers games back in the 70s, her rendition of the song has been playing at games for decades now. Recently, the team became aware of lyrics from Smith’s other songs that would be a PR nightmare for a league with less than one hundred players of African descent.

Peep the bars this 1931 song “That’s Why Darkies Were Born”:

“Someone had to pick the cotton,

Someone had to plant the corn,

Someone had to slave and be able to sing,

That’s why darkies were born”

Also, refer to Smith’s other hit, 1933’s “Pickaninny Heaven” where she tells orphaned Black children that they should dream of a magically delicious place with “great big watermelons”.

Yeah. FDB.

“The NHL principle ‘Hockey is for Everyone’ is at the heart of everything the Flyers stand for,” Flyers President Paul Holmgren said in a statement. “As a result, we cannot stand idle while material from another era gets in the way of who we are today.”

Good riddance. Crazy to think that an NHL team, a majority white NHL team, was willing to do away with a racist element of their “team culture” before a majority Black NFL team would.