Are Mickey Mouse’s spats and gloves racist? Sigh.

Because antiracists find racism everywhere, some insist Mickey Mouse’s gloves and spats are racist reminders of Jim Crow minstrel shows. The most entertaining version may be Ty Templeton’s The Gloves are Off!

I love Templeton’s comics, but the people he’s siding with are wrong. Here’s why:

1. Spats were popular with rich and poor for a decade after Mickey was created in 1928. One year earlier, Irving Berlin wrote Puttin’ On the Ritz, which opens:

Have you seen the well-to-do, up and down Park Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare, with their noses in the air
High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars
Spending every dime, for a wonderful time

2. When Mickey first appeared, he did not wear spats or gloves. Walt Disney said,

We didn’t want him to have mouse hands, because he was supposed to be more human. So we gave him gloves. Five Fingers looked like too much on such a little figure, so we took one away. That was just one less finger to animate.

Now, it’s possible Disney was revising his past when he said that. He was an antisemite [see PS below] who refused to hire women for years, and the kindest thing you can say about Song of the South is that it has some great songs and a remarkably clueless approach to the…