Durka-Durka-Muhammed-Jihad!!
There's always the element of sheer stupidity that pops up in American culture every so often and here's something that meets that criteria:
School to vote on renaming Jefferson Elementary
President's slave holdings perturb families, teachers
Parents, students and teachers at Berkeley's Thomas Jefferson Elementary School will soon vote on whether to rename their school because the nation's third president was a slave owner.
The question of whether to rename the school has been debated for more than two years -- since several teachers, including an African American mother of three former Jefferson students, said Jefferson's moniker offended them and suggested a name change.
On Monday, Principal Betty Delaney released a list of potential new names -- one nominated by a student, the rest by adults. Parents, students and teachers must first vote on a new name, then take a second vote on whether to replace Jefferson with the new name.
The school board must officially approve any name change.
Contenders for the new name included Ralph Bunche, the African American diplomat at the United Nations who was the first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize; farmworker organizer Cesar Chavez; and Florence McDonald, the late Berkeley city councilwoman, leftist political leader and mother of singer Country Joe McDonald.
Other names suggested were Sojourner Truth, a woman who fled slavery in New York in 1828 and became one of the best-known abolitionist orators; Ohlone -- for the indigenous people who lived in Berkeley before European settlers arrived; Peace; Rose; and Sequoia.
Marguerite Talley-Hughes, a kindergarten teacher at Jefferson who is African American, said she thinks it is reasonable to want a name that is not offensive to some in the school community.
"It's very clear that the name is offensive to a significant part of the population,'' said Hughes, who lives in the neighborhood and sent her own three children to Jefferson.
"There's no reason we can't have a name that everyone likes and can feel good about,'' she said.
I came across this early this morning over at Michael King's site (another Munuvian) where he had this to say about it:
So they figure that naming the school after a former US President is offensive.The 'dipstick' factor here is that if you went through all of America's schools, libraries, parks, bridges, buildings, etc, and renamed them because of some nasty aspect of their historical prescence is offensive by today's standards, well....it would be a multi-generational undertaking.And people wonder why I refer to the place as "Berserkley."
Just damn.
For example: if we were to follow this trend of renaming public institutions because the namesake was B-A-D, then I guess we'd have to re-name all of the high schools that are named after Robert E. Lee - GENERAL Robert E. Lee, Confederate States of America.
(Ironically, the first one on the list is in Fairfax County Public Schools where I went to high school. Not Lee, but George C. Marshall High School)
And you know what? Most of the kids going to any of the Robert E. Lee high schools wouldn't give a fig for the fact that Lee was fighting for the Confederate States. They'd probably just say "It's part of our history" and leave it at that. At least, that's what I'd do.
To those num-nums that think they're doing people and society a service by trying to eradicate all traces of B-A-D stuff from our history: don't. You're just making a fool out of yourselves and of our history.
YES, slavery in American history was a deplorable institution and it took way too long to eradicate both it and it's legacies from modern America, but it IS part of what makes America the nation today that it is. Accept history for what it is - something that happened in the PAST - learn from history, and work to prevent it from happening again if there was some part that was indeed B-A-D.
And if you insist upon revamping history cause you're 'offended', you'd better roll up your sleeves for all the stuff in West Virginia that's named after Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)....former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Kluz Klan. (Yeah - him).
Going back and (pardon the pun) 'whiting-out' all the nasty stuff just makes you look...well, stupid.
Way to keep that secret identity a secret, huh?
*chuckles*
Read more in Revisionist History, Revisionist FactScroff? YOU'RE the LIBERAL AVENGER?
Way to keep that secret identity a secret, huh?
Read more in Revisionist History, Revisionist FactMore powerful than a smelly hippy!
Huh? What'd I do?
Seriously thou
Read more in Revisionist History, Revisionist Fact
Maeve said:
Find a name that everyone can agree upon? I think not. You can't please every one. SOMEONE will f
Read more in Revisionist History, Revisionist Fact
Rob@L&R said:
Faster than a speeding anarchist!
More powerful than a smelly hippy!
Able to leap log
Read more in Revisionist History, Revisionist Fact
Mad Mikey said:
You guys are a riot, pulling the racist thing out of your asses.
Okay...once again
Read more in Revisionist History, Revisionist Fact
Comments on Revisionist History, Revisionist Fact
You can name the school in your community whatever you want. Presumably it should be a name that the people in the community are happy with.
Mikey - you are the epitome of the cranky, "woe is me, the world is out to get me," angry white guy under fire. You were embarrassingly so afflicted last summer when you were a commenter on Malkin's blog and you are twice as embarrassingly so afflicted now.
You're like Andy Rooney except half as old and twice as much of a crank.
|| Posted by The Liberal Avenger, March 23, 2005 12:37 PM ||Okay, like Rain Man talking/mumbling you're only making sense to YOU.
WTF are you babbling about? 'Angry White Guy'...?
|| Posted by Mad Mikey, March 23, 2005 01:03 PM ||Fairfax County still has Robert E. Lee High School (across the street from Springfield Mall), with no plans to rename it.
I went to Hayfield, which really should be called Hempfield. George Washington grew pot!
As for the Liberal Avenger (why do I picture him as Syndrome from The Incredibles?) ignore him, Mikey... he can't argue with you, so he calls you names, basically calling you a racist.
What's next, LA? Is Mikey a big POOPYHEAD?
|| Posted by Rob@L&R, March 23, 2005 02:07 PM ||why do I picture him as Syndrome from The Incredibles?
ROFLMAO!!
|| Posted by Mad Mikey, March 23, 2005 02:53 PM ||You guys are a riot, pulling the racist thing out of your asses.
|| Posted by The Liberal Avenger, March 23, 2005 04:04 PM ||You guys are a riot, pulling the racist thing out of your asses.
Okay...once again: WTF are you babbling about?
|| Posted by Mad Mikey, March 23, 2005 05:07 PM ||Faster than a speeding anarchist!
More powerful than a smelly hippy!
Able to leap logic in a single bound!
Look! Down in the sewers!
It's a rat! It's a cockroach! It's a piece of fecal matter!
IT's the LIBERAL AVENGER!
Yes, IT'S the LIBERAL AVENGER!
Strange visitor from another planet with politics and protests outside those of the mainstream!
LIBERAL AVENGER - who can change the courses of college students, twist words in his bare hands and who, disguised as a rage-mannered moonbat, the LIBERAL AVENGER fights a never-ending battle for tyranny, genocide and the ANTI-American way!
|| Posted by Rob@L&R, March 24, 2005 05:54 AM ||Find a name that everyone can agree upon? I think not. You can't please every one. SOMEONE will find a way to whine about something. Are these same people getting their panties in a wad over how the Japense people were treated during WW II? How about the Jews in the holocaust? Hell, no one would hire the Irish when they first came here. There is not one race that hasn't been discriminated against.
|| Posted by Maeve, March 24, 2005 10:57 AM ||More powerful than a smelly hippy!
Huh? What'd I do?
Seriously though, this kind of stuff is stupid. Hell we might just as well go ahead and change the name of the United States of America because, well, you know, the United States of America did some pretty nasty shit over it's history.... problem is, we'd also have to change the name of the Human Race, because, well, you know...
|| Posted by scroff, March 26, 2005 02:38 AM ||Scroff? YOU'RE the LIBERAL AVENGER?
Way to keep that secret identity a secret, huh?
But you're right (as Scroff). We would have to change the names of 1/2 the states, which are taken from native peoples languages, so not to 'offend' those native peoples.
Even my commie little brother says "Offended? Deal!"
|| Posted by Rob@L&R, March 26, 2005 05:58 AM ||Way to keep that secret identity a secret, huh?
*chuckles*
|| Posted by scroff, March 26, 2005 12:02 PM ||