We cats are spending part of Independence Day reading an amusing history of a song we despise, "God Bless America." We've always loathed it for its irritating tune and sappy jingoism. Now, it's funny to see right wingers getting up in arms about sports teams pulling the Kate Smith cover of the song, because Smith had a previously undisclosed habit of singing racist stuff in vaudeville.
After the Philadelphia Flyers removed a statue of Smith from the grounds of the Wells Fargo Arena, the Kate Smith Commemorative Society responded with umbrage, calling it "political correctness" and bemoaning "the unfair and all-too-frequent tendency to judge events of the past by the standards and sensibilities of the present."
Well, duh. When wouldn't we do that? Of course we reassess history as we become more enlightened. If we didn't, then we'd still agree that blackface is cool and slavery was okay. That interning Japanese-American citizens during World War II was right. That gays minding their own business in bars should be busted. That only white, Christian, landowning men should vote. And so on.
Our collective march toward progress has seen quite a few bumps in the road lately, what with the Trumpsters turning back the clock on women's rights, suppressing the vote, caging asylum-seekers, rolling tanks through the streets of Washington and destroying democracy. It's hard not to get discouraged. But a world in which a stupid Kate Smith statue can get covered up like a burka and then hauled off to the dump is a pretty good place to be. We cats remain hopeful, and we PURR.
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