God Bless America should be our National Anthem

Our National Anthem needs to change and can!

People debate today whether or not to take down statues representing “enemy” to some and “victim” to others.  As a beneficial result of the recent George Floyd events, enlightened curators consider whether a statue produces a cruel visceral response in those who suffer today from the still consistent sting of discrimination and whether it would be more instructive to relocate the statue where it can contribute to a better, more cohesive understanding of our history. 

At least there is a debate!  There  was no debate a year ago when members of a Black Live Matter (BLM) group decided to falsely label Kate Smith a racist.  The NY Yankees stopped playing her rendition of “God Bless America” at the 7th inning stretch. Then the Philadelphia flyers took down the statue of Kate Smith. 

It had been erected in 1987, after her passing, by the then Owner of the Flyers to commemorate how they felt about her AND her singing “God Bless America” before a game.  When she appeared live, the Flyers had a habit of winning each game.  

When did she fall from Grace?  When only 2 (of three thousand) songs by Miss Smith convinced the BLM slanderers that Kate Smith was a racist.  Did they consider that in her fifty years in radio and TV, Kate Smith had introduced great stars to the world, like Josephine Baker – one of the top 20 black singers of all time – who later marched with Martin Luther King!?

• Acting (as a racist in a movie) informs a viewer of a shameful history but doesn’t imply that the actor is a racist.  Often, it’s just the opposite. Likewise,  singing a racist song, doesn’t make the singer a racist. A racist spends a lifetime demeaning and slandering a race.

To this day, there still is no debate, no statue, and no singing the beautiful “God Bless America” – a truly magnificent American treasure which should probably replace our current National Anthem. 

• Our current one that most of us stumble over to sing has become “offensive” now because the author was a slave owner. The virtually unknown third stanza (which is never sung) demeans the black race even more! What’s more offensive is that no one (without a trained voice) can even sing all the notes and most children adults still don’t even know the words of their own National Anthem!  

I believe that Black Lives do Matter. The title is certainly true. Removing the Kate Smith statue was a simple error in the judgment of just a few. This mistake is easily forgivable by simply returning the statue to where it was, or “offering it” to Lake Placid, who’s fellow-citizens venerated their summer neighbor at her beloved “Camp Sunshine,” (her summer home) and still do after all these many years. My wife, Suzy, remembers all the summers spent there as a child with her Aunt Kathryn and friends.

I don’t remember seeing one argument a year ago agreeing with the removal of the Kate Smith statue.  The sports teams, run by true American Patriots, can simplify this for ALL of us in the name of re-unifying the United States, and restore the statue and song.  Americans need to hear that song more than ever.

Though it had been a military favorite from the previous century, Congress established the current National Anthem in 1931.  7 years later, in 1938 “God Bless America” was given to Kate Smith by Irving Berlin (an immigrant),  who had written it in 1917 (during WWI). Kate asked him for a song to cheer up the country as WWII was brewing.

• Today, many people think of “God Bless America” as a second national anthem anyway.  All political candidates left and right, conclude almost all their addresses with “God Bless America” – as did President Trump on July 4, 2020.
• Almost every American can sing this prayer of a song.  It simply asks God to bless this incredible Country, which is happiest and at peace when united.
• President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced Kate Smith to Queen Elizabeth, saying: “your Majesty, this is Kate Smith, this is America!”

Let’s make “God Bless America” our new National Anthem and hear the beloved God-given voice of Kate Smith sing out loud again, in concert with everyone else, from our sports games to our government halls, to help re-unite ALL the people of the United States of America.