Blaming Mame
"Put the Blame on Mame" was a cabaret number best remembered in Rita Hayworth's film noir classic, "Gilda." Ten years later, it was less effectively performed in Anita Eckberg's schlocky horror-drama "Screaming Mimi." Mame was a woman who was blamed for everything and anything, from the Chicago fire to the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. Since these events were more than fifty years apart, it suggests that Mame was quite a dame and had remarkable staying power. Today, we are still blaming Mame in Rochester. Except that we have renamed Mame. Mame is now the police department. Or "systemic" racism. Or "White privilege." Or sexism. Or politics. Mame is everything but personal responsibility or ethics. Rochesterians don't seem to like those concepts too much. After all, all the recent shootings, stabbings, non-fatal assaults and car-jackings here have been blamed on systemic racism or the pandemic. For once, something isn