What’s In A Name?
G. Gordon Liddy said about J Edgar Hoover, that his fatal flaw was that he had no one to tell him, “J.Edgar, on this particular issue, you’re totally full of shit”.
I will reluctantly fulfill that role here.
The same way judges look at ‘Original Intent’ of lawmakers when interpreting a law, we judge thing like Confederate Battle Flags on state Seals & Flags—and names of things. If the Confederate flag had been on the state seal since 1860 that would have been different. It was put on State Seals and Flags in the 1950s as a symbol of resistance to integration. And it’s outta here.
If the town had been named after Joshua Ebeneezer White, tough tittie. Things that are named after our European heritage, say, New York (formerly New Amsterdam) no problem. Things that reflect our heritage of enslaving, killing, and crushing minorities can go. It wasn’t the black folks who named their neighborhoods ‘Darkie Town’ and other less PC names. What ‘White Settlement’ meant was “No Nigras Allowed”. You know it, I know it.
Sometimes it’s appropriate for an oppressed minority to celebrate its history and its survival. It is not OK for an suppressing majority to celebrate its history of oppression. We memorialize the Jews that fought and died at the Warsaw Ghetto, not the german troops who massacred them.
P.S. We had a fight here, years ago, to change the name of “Gay Street”. It was named for George Gay, of the Battle of Midway.
Posted by Oink
11/07/2005 at 08:00 AM
I beg to disagree, Oink. “White Settlement” more than likely meant “no Mess-cans” and “no Redskins”. This is Texas, remember, not Mississippi. The early settlers in this region arrived and looked around. They found dark-skinned savages (Commanches and Apaches) who attacked and killed them and made off with scalps and women. They also found dark-skinned Mexican armies shooting up the landscape and trying to drive them out. They were being “oppressed” by every dark-skinned group in the local countryside. They fought back against overwhelming odds and managed to make a life in the wilderness, improving the country and society. Why should their heritage be any less important than any other group who survived to make this great nation?
Respectfully, you’re full of shit on this one.
A clarification:
The Skipper is dead-on correct 99%+ of the time. I also despise the whining of minorities over any conceivable grievance. Minorities at Indiana University complained about a historical mural by Thomas Hart Benton showing a cross-burning. Among many other things and not in a lauditory manner. Tough. Get over it. You’ll face worse in the Real World. I also thought it was nonsense when “White Harvest” (meaning ripe, ready to harvest) Church changed its name.
My German “son” felt (correctly) that his country, given its history, had to be very careful about issues of anti-semitism and militarism. Likewise, we should take a hard look at white supremacy in our country. It was very, very seldom and temporary that white people were surrounded and oppressed. Usually when we were in the process of stealing their land.
There are verbal coincidences (remember the furor over “niggardly”?) and there are deliberate insults; then there were things that were understandable centuries ago, but don’t cut it today. I would not want my address to be “White Settlement”.
Posted by Oink
11/07/2005 at 09:25 AM
There are a million subtleties in history and language. And I could be wrong.
But if I met a former (black) classmate at a reunion and he asked me for my address
... I’d probably tell him to just email me.
Posted by Oink
11/07/2005 at 10:57 AM
My graduating class had no blacks either (Opp, Alabama - 1967). The city school system was divided into two parts (you can guess which). They integrated the next year (two blacks were allowed to enter the white school). It was 1971 before the black school was finally shut down and everything was fully integrated into one school.
Fortunately for me, I only had to go to school there for two years. Dad dumped us back in his hometown in Alabama while he went off to Vietnam. Prior to that I had attended schools all over the world (Air Force brat) and rubbed elbows with all races. Parachuting into Alabama in 1965 was a culture shock for me. Things have changed a WHOLE lot back there since the late 60’s. Thankfully.
See my recent comment under “Keeping Faith”. I grew up in an all white town and school. Booorrring. My first real contact with other races was in The Corps. My best friend in boot camp/ITR was a black Texas sharecropper’s son. Francisco Saenz (a Chicano from the Barrio)was my best friend in Delta Co. & Vietnam. I was also his first Anglo friend. SAENZ (Panel 02 E Line 10)
Skipper/OCM things are a whole lot better. If minority “leaders” would stop stirring things up ... The real change in this country is astounding. Thank God people die—some jerkoffs will never change. I hate to say this, but the only outward discrimination my kids have had is from other Asians.
Posted by Oink
11/07/2005 at 02:04 PM
OCM: Yes, sure is, what else could it be? A homogenous race/culture, isolated for thousands of years. On an island in the case of Japan. Europeans used to marvel at our insularity and parochialism, but can’t compete with Asians in that regard.
Qualifications: Broad brush statement. And, I’m very fond of them—three of them especially so.
Posted by Oink
11/07/2005 at 04:21 PM
Greenville, Tx used to have a sign up stating that they had the blackest dirt and the whitest folks in Texas.
Rah! Kirk! Sounds great to me!
Did they have a segregated landfill? One section for The Coloreds, another marked “White Trash”?
Posted by Oink
11/07/2005 at 08:29 PM
If whites settled it, why should a non-white move in and be unhappy with the name?
