The Mummers: Get the facts straight

I wake up this morning to two predictable items — the Mummers Parade, and the Inquirer throwing shade.

Does the “paper of record” celebrate the nation’s oldest folk parade, and the #1 winter festival, according to  USA Today this year?

It does not mention either.

Demonstrating its menstrual cramps, the paper digs chestnuts out of the fire.

Reporter Mike Newall digs up a handy “entrepreneur based in Philadelphia” named Tayyib Smith to complain about “the structural racism in its DNA.” Reveling in his Woke ignorance, Smith claims the parade is an “abomination.”

I could say the same about the Democratic Party’s “structural racism,” but I’ll bet Smith votes that way.

Just before the racist accusation, Newall writes that “many,” a true word without meaning, “find it inexcusable the city still supports a parade with minstrel roots.”

What’s inexcusable is that a Philadelphia newspaper would let that slime pass.

In point of fact, Mummers’ roots can be traced not to minstrelly, but to 17th Century Europe, Greece before that (Mummer is derived from Momus, the personification of satire), and even to Egypt before that.

Not minstrel roots. That is Newall’s opinion, and it is wrong.

Not racist, because the earliest parades had one or more all-African American string bands. 

Now, to be fair, those Black bands dropped out because they felt they were not getting a fair shake from judges. Were they right about that? I have no way of knowing.

The Mummers’ official theme song, “Oh Dem Golden Slippers” was written by James Bland, a Black man. 

For the record, masquerading — hiding identity — was and is a Mummer tradition, as is face painting.

The use of blackface was traditional, but was banned in 1964 by the city as being needlessly offensive. My word choice is deliberate. Sometimes being offensive is the only thing that breaks through.

Despite blackface being banned, from time to time some knucklehead or two — never more than that among 10,000 marchers — would smear black makeup on, and smear the reputation of Mummers.

Here’s a mouthful from Newall, in the second paragraph: “In the wake of the Mummer’s Parade latest blackface flap — and a string of other racist and offensive behavior, including depictions of Indians, Native Americans, Mexicans, LGBTQ people, and other groups” the Mummers assured City Council they could do better.

Notice “the string of other racist and offensive behavior” could just as easily been phrased as “widely spaced incidents of what some people see as racist and offensive.

There is nothing intrinsically racist about depictions of Indians, Native Americans and Mexicans. No more so than almost annual depictions of Vikings, Irish, Germans, and Hawaiians.

Offense come only from the deluded who think the recently-invented notion of “cultural appropriation” is a sin, or a crime, or disrespectful.

No culture has the forever rights to what it produces. The Italians don’t “own” opera any more than Blacks own jazz or Jews own bagels or the French own cheese.

The key is what is done with the characters.

String Bands are always celebratory. You should be thrilled they chose you.

The Comics or Wenches, less so.

To understand the Comics requires you to understand they exist to satirize, poke fun, and sometimes, yes, to offend.

Should the city sponsor an event that might offend?

No, it shouldn’t.

And it doesn’t. The city does not sponsor the parade — it permits it. It provides only the same city services — such as police and sanitation — that it provides to any other parade.

And while the parade shouldn’t aim at offense, to not take chances guarantees entertainment as exciting as yogurt.

This afternoon, the Happy Tappers New Years Brigade did a sketch in which they flushed Mayor Jim Kenney down an oversized commode.

Offensive? Not to me, but to him, sure. The Comic who played Kenney stood behind a podium that said, “I don’t want to be mayor,” and wore a fake nose. (Not as big as Kenney’s real nose.)

Offensive? Maybe, but well within the lines of Mummer mimicry.

Newall quotes Philadelphia Mummer String Band Association President Sam Regalbuto as saying, “So we have to be very careful that we don’t do anything that would be offensive to anyone.”

Well, that’s impossible, especially when anyone with half a brain knows there are self-righteous wokesters out there looking for things to be offended about.

Philly prides itself on being a tough town. It’s tough enough to like the Mummers Parade.

And if you don’t like it, don’t watch.

We won’t miss you.