I'm glad you brought this up OR as this is something I've been looking into the last few days. What do we know about her character and how did she come to sing these songs? It's a long post but I will share some of my findings and my feelings below if you care to read.
I haven't commented yet on this matter as I have been busy doing research the last few days as this whole episode bothers me as a Flyers fan. We've all seen and discussed that at least one song was parody and was sung by Paul Robeson but that still doesn't address Kate's character or how she came to sing these songs. From what I have read and heard on radio broadcasts (debating this issue) performers back in the day had little say in what they sang you were assigned songs by the record label, specifically there was someone called the Artists and Repertoire (or A&R) man who made all these decisions for you. If you refused you could find yourself out on your rear. One infamous instance of an A&R folly I found was is Frank Sinatra being forced to sing "Mamma Will bark" by A&R man Mitch Miller at Columbia records. Frank did it very reluctantly and was thoroughly embarrassed by it (listen to it and you can see why); he never forgave Miller for making him sing it and years later when Miller bumped into Sinatra in Vegas and tried to say hi Frank said, "F*** you, keep walking". This was Frank Sinatra, a big star we are talking about, yet he didn't have a say, now lets get back to Kate Smith. The research I did indicated that Kate was a 250 lb woman who was routinely mocked for her weight in Hollywood (Jason Whitlock talks about this in the clip of him I posted earlier in the thread) she was singing whatever they gave her just to keep her job as her employers already had a perfect excuse to get rid of her is she stepped out of line. Was this cowardly on her part? Maybe, a bit it would have been awesome if she had refused but its easy to play Monday morning QB too; I am sure some of us would have done the same thing to keep our job. The point is that she likely didn't have any control of what she was to sing as singers do nowadays. Granted that doesn't make the song right but it is a mitigating circumstance for me as it helps me to better understand her position in all this.
In doing further character research on her I also stumbled upon some stories that Kate would routinely have black performers on her TV show "The Kate Smith Evening Hour" most notably, singer Josephine Baker who sang in the WWII effort and then subsequently lived in France, upon her return to the US she was confronted with the realities of segregation in the US that she hadn't seen in France and hadn't experienced since she was a child. Baker refused to perform in front of segregated audiences which was problematic for her career. She was also accused of being a communist by gossip columnist Walter Winchell and for this was a very controversial figure whom nobody wanted to book on TV. Yet her big break in the US, and television debut was given to her by Kate Smith on Halloween 1951.
Kate's family also mentions that she was not racist however due to the risk of bias I am not considering their comments in forming my opinions.
My point in all this is there may have been reasons (not yet considered or known) as to why she sang these songs. Again it doesn't make the songs right but it may explain her decisions (right or wrong). There may also be some evidence out there giving us a small glimpse into her character suggesting that maybe she was not a rabid racist. What I uncovered doesn't prove anything 100% but it does suggest there may be more than meets the eye to this story which is why I have a hard time with what the Flyers did.
The part that upsets me the most though is the rapidity of how it all happened and how the Flyers lied and said they were looking into it and they continue to lie to me as a season ticket holder saying that they are still reviewing this "serious and sensitive matter". There was and will be no research on their part. The decision has been made already and will not be reversed. The worst part is the decision was not at all made out of their racial sensitivity. This decision was made strictly for image maintenance and corporate expediency, nothing less and nothing more.
Finally what does the Kate Smith phenomenon mean to me as a Flyers fan? I don't believe in luck or good luck charms at all but for some reason their record when the song was played was incredible. For me it was just a cool Flyers thing (an analogy would be as Americana is to the USA). I know a lot of you had grown to detest the tradition as it was old and played out in your minds but for me though it is a part of the Flyers fabric, it is a very unique part of the Flyers story. It was one of many factors which helped to create the feeling of family that I sensed with this team when I became a fan in 1984 and have felt to this day (until now). I'm a fan of the other teams in town too but the Flyers had this unique way of making me like them more due to their traditions and the way they were run. That's been torn to pieces for me now by how they handled this as for the first time ever for me I don't feel like we are family any more. There was no debate, not among season ticket holders, not among rank and file fans, it was just over and done with.
I could stomach this a lot more if we all had some discussions about our viewpoints. If for instance legions of African American fans (whom I see quite a few of at the games nowadays) came forward and said hey despite all you say, about Kate this really really hurts me more than you could ever know and understand. I could live with that. I could truly accept that and move on from there but unless we go through the exercise of having these conversations and looking at the whole picture then I just put it down to corporate cowardice, and expediency on the part of the Comcast/NBC. Maybe that's why it doesn't feel like family anymore because the Flyers have ceased to be a family and are now just a corporate entity like the rest.
