Tag Archives: political correctness run amok

Foolishly Ending A Tradition

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One of my favorite baseball traditions is the seventh-inning stretch and the singing of “God Bless America.” The tradition of singing “God Bless America”
began after 9/11. The Washington Times reported yesterday that the New York Yankees will no longer play the recording of Kate Smith singing the song. Now I will admit that having lived in Massachusetts for thirty-five years, I really don’t care what the Yankees do, but this is just political correctness run amok.

The article reports:

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.”

So can’t they get anyone else to record the song?

The article states:

“The Yankees have been made aware of a recording that had been previously unknown to us and decided to immediately and carefully review this new information,” a club spokesman said. “The Yankees take social, racial and cultural insensitivities very seriously. And while no final conclusions have been made, we are erring on the side of sensitivity.”

This is another example of judging history by the standards of today. There were a lot of things that have happened in the past that were not noteworthy at the time that are being taken out of context in hindsight. In order to truly evaluate history, you need to immerse yourself in the culture of the time you are studying. Insensitivity is not a crime–insensitivity in the past was not even considered insensitivity because there weren’t so many people running around being professional victims.

Keep the song. Let someone else sing it if you have to. Don’t end an American tradition because of political correctness.

 

Something To Think About

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A friend sent me a link to the video below. I admit I wasn’t sure what to think when I watched it. Then I saw an article at Fox News that really caused me to wonder. Please watch, and draw your own conclusions:

The lead paragraph in the article at Fox News:

A U.S. Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania, Fox News has learned.

…The incident occurred during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on extremism. Topping the list is Evangelical Christianity. Other organizations listed included Catholicism, Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan, Sunni Muslims, and Nation of Islam.

The military also listed “Islamophobia” as a form of religious extremism.

Army spokesman George Wright told Fox News that this was an “isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army.”

There needs to be a serious investigation of who put this training brief together. This sort of ridiculousness is happening at a time when the American military is refusing to use the world Islamic terrorist and has declared the Fort Hood shootings as ‘workplace violence.’ Something is very wrong here.

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New Heights In Insanity

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Yesterday the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) posted an article about their filing an amicus brief to defend the World Trade Center cross. This is the story:

The legal argument is absurd. American Atheists, which has filed a lawsuit to remove a cross from the new museum at Ground Zero, is making some astonishing claims.

The atheists say they are suffering both physical and emotional damages from the existence of the cross. That’s the right. The mere existence of this memorial has brought on headaches, indigestion, even mental pain. They even make a bizarre suggestion about erecting a “17-foot-high A for Atheists” to promote their non-beliefs at the site.

These claims are ridiculous. And so is the lawsuit. In just a matter of days, we will be filing a critical amicus brief defending this Ground Zero cross, which consists of two intersecting steel beams that survived the Twin Towers collapse on 9-11. We have a unique opportunity to not only urge the court to reject this flawed lawsuit, but to send a powerful message to the court: that more than 100,000 Americans are standing with us in this brief – urging the court to keep this powerful memorial in place.

If you haven’t signed your name yet, there’s still time to do that. Add your name to our brief now. We want to top the 100,000 mark. And we need your help to do it. Add your name here.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum already has filed papers with the court defending the cross.

According to the museum, the cross is an “important and essential artifact” that “comprises a key component of the retelling of the story of 9/11, in particular the role of faith in the events of the day and, particularly, during the recovery efforts.” As the museum correctly points out: the 9/11 Museum is “not in the business of providing equal time for faiths, we are in the business of telling the story of 9/11 and the victims of 9/11.”

Absolutely correct.

If you choose to get involved, here is what to do:

Add your name to our brief defending this Ground Zero cross now.

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