Letters to the Editor
Rewriting History
Every time I hear a recording of Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” on the radio, I have to stop and listen. It is so moving. Her contralto voice and the beautiful emotion and love for her country shine through and bring tears to my eyes. The roaring applause for her both before and after she sang at the Philadelphia Flyers’ hockey game in 1973 also made my heart soar, though I only saw it on film. The people who were at that game were truly lucky. The Flyers played her rendition of the song often before their hockey games. No wonder the league put up a statue of her outside the arena. But that statue is now shrouded with black cloth and the plan is to take it down.
What is happening to our culture? When did moments in our past become offensive? Christopher Columbus’ and Robert E. Lee’s statues are under attack. This is our history, and we cannot change history. We must remember the atmosphere of thought in which those people lived.
This is reminiscent of George Orwell’s novel 1984, where Winston Smith, working for the Ministry of Truth, had the job of rewriting history to fit the government narrative. History, and the recording of it, is what furnishes us with knowledge about what actually happened, and that should be as fixed as the stars. Yet there are those willing to erase it from history books and from memory so that future generations will never know.
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