Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

raveneye · 04-01-2005, 05:12 AM

I also see no problem with changing the name of the school, if that's what the teachers, parents, and students want.

But this does raise some interesting political questions. For example: what sort of names are we as a society obligated to change as we change our perceptions of historical figures and events? Do we include place names as well? There are a lot of cities and counties named "Jefferson" in the U.S. Why is it that this issue divides liberals and conservatives? Liberals tend to have no problem with recognizing and acknowledging slave ownership, while conservatives seem to perceive this as anti-American.

And do we restrict ourselves to American/European figures? Take for example Seattle. Chief Seattle, as a leader and warrior, (1) was a slave owner; (2) almost certainly did not believe there was anything wrong with having slaves; (3) actually led slave-capturing raids; (4) was polygamous; (5) killed a lot of innocent people, including massacring an entire village for the sole reason to maintain his status and honor; and (6) did all this pretty much as a contemporary of Jefferson, or even more recently. What if the relatives of Seattle's victims put together a petition to change the name of Seattle, because they felt degraded by living in a city that honored this murderer? Not very many of these people have survived, so this petition might not have very many names on it. But it might have the names of virtually 100% of the surviving relatives. Should the name then be changed?

You could argue that all these relatives' ancestors also had slaves and were just as murderous as Seattle. But then you could also argue that the African ancestors of those black teachers who want to do away with "Jefferson" were also barbaric slave owners. History is full of ironies, it seems pointless to hold people accountable who were not alive at the time.

So if all it takes to obligate us to change a name is that descendents of victims want it changed, then I would argue that we should be doing a lot of name changing in this country.

04-01-2005, 05:12 AM	#45 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	I also see no problem with changing the name of the school, if that's what the teachers, parents, and students want. But this does raise some interesting political questions. For example: what sort of names are we as a society obligated to change as we change our perceptions of historical figures and events? Do we include place names as well? There are a lot of cities and counties named "Jefferson" in the U.S. Why is it that this issue divides liberals and conservatives? Liberals tend to have no problem with recognizing and acknowledging slave ownership, while conservatives seem to perceive this as anti-American. And do we restrict ourselves to American/European figures? Take for example Seattle. Chief Seattle, as a leader and warrior, (1) was a slave owner; (2) almost certainly did not believe there was anything wrong with having slaves; (3) actually led slave-capturing raids; (4) was polygamous; (5) killed a lot of innocent people, including massacring an entire village for the sole reason to maintain his status and honor; and (6) did all this pretty much as a contemporary of Jefferson, or even more recently. What if the relatives of Seattle's victims put together a petition to change the name of Seattle, because they felt degraded by living in a city that honored this murderer? Not very many of these people have survived, so this petition might not have very many names on it. But it might have the names of virtually 100% of the surviving relatives. Should the name then be changed? You could argue that all these relatives' ancestors also had slaves and were just as murderous as Seattle. But then you could also argue that the African ancestors of those black teachers who want to do away with "Jefferson" were also barbaric slave owners. History is full of ironies, it seems pointless to hold people accountable who were not alive at the time. So if all it takes to obligate us to change a name is that descendents of victims want it changed, then I would argue that we should be doing a lot of name changing in this country.