School Names

[Dan_Harris]

The latest flap concerning the South and slavery has risen concerning school names. Please dicsuss

[scott_harpell]

Same Ol' P.C. bullshit.

[willstrickland]

Who cares? The kids don't give a shit what the name of the school is, they just want to get laid, to have their older brother to buy them some beer, and to win the football game friday night...in about that order.

 

Better take Jefferson and Washington off the currency too.

[arlen]

I don't care about the names on the front of the schools--they're usually a monument to their namesake's irrelevance. But a disproportionate number of folks always leaps to defend the Southern status quo, usually prefacing it all with "I'm not racist." What's their dog in this race?

[scrambler]

The odd thing is someone once remarked that had blacks not been brought to this country as slaves, their present day descendants would most likely be living in much poorer conditions with famine, rampant AIDS, water shortage, war, genocide, etc.

 

I would suppose that in communities that are predominantly black the political will and clout would exist to force a change in the names of the schools if they wished.

 

A politician once said that all politics is local. Consistent with that, I think the issue should be debated and resolved at the local level within each city, not something that is imposed by fiat by outsiders

[arlen]

The odd thing is someone once remarked that had blacks not been brought to this country as slaves, their present day descendants would most likely be living in much poorer conditions with famine, rampant AIDS, water shortage, war, genocide, etc.

 

 

Finish your point, Scrambler.

[scrambler]

Slavery is wrong because it's an injustice to human dignity.

 

My point is that the black population should take matters into their own hands if they see it as a political necessity to change things.

 

I suppose one of the questions they have to ask themselves is: "Do these names politicize the schools and does this distract from their primary function?”

 

Revisionism occurs every time society's attitudes change based on our understanding of the world and of our relationship to the world. We judge from today's standands but if you were living at that time you might not have recognized that certain practices or their prohibition were wrong. Most of us are prisoners of prevailing mental attitudes of the time. Few are the people who can stand outside of time with a God's eye view. Only in retrospect can most of us see these things.

 

Slavery was proven wrong but it was once an acceptable practice. Infanticide was another accepted practice although during the ancient world.

 

It's odd too how the extreme cases are gone but don't we still have somewhat similar conditions though different, situations such as economic servitude to corporations and abortion on demand?

 

Personally, I don't know if I entirely agree that history follows a predominantly linear course of enlightened progression. Our minds might be enslaved as much as it was in the past. The evolving developments of technology can just as easily be used to control as it can to liberate.

[Dan_Harris]

There is an expression, "hindsight is 20 - 20." But in an attempt to be PC, we often do not look at the historical perspective in which things are written or named. Does the name of a school really have an affect on kids attitudes? I would be willing to bet, sadly even at schools named after really famous people, that many students couldn't tell you much about that person. If a locality wants to change the name that is their perogative. As stated before it should not become a national issue. If people were really smart they could teach the kids about the name and history and let them decide, especially a high school. Get the kids involved in learning history and use it as a civics lesson.