References: Senators Markey, Warren and Congressman Al Green Introduce the Reconciliation in Place Names Act (senate.gov); Democrats Introduce Bill to Rename Places Named With Racist Slurs (businessinsider.com); Democrats introduced a bill to rename more than 1,000 forests, lakes, and mountain peaks named with racist slurs or offensive language (msn.com)
Yes, your woke friends in the Democratic Party (the usual Warrens and Markeys, etc.) have recently been spending their time ferreting out all the allegedly objectionable racist and bigoted names from all the public place names in the country. They do this on your nickel, by the way. All the real issues that our elected represenatives should be dealing with are being sidelined because of the energy and money being funneled into ridiculous endeavors like finding every unwoke public place name in the country and then developing legislation to turn the unwoke into the woke.
“The Reconciliation in Place Names Act would specifically:
- Create an advisory board composed of individuals with backgrounds in civil rights and race relations, tribal citizens, and organizations to bring a depth of knowledge and experience to the process.
- Solicit proposals from tribal nations, state and local governments, and members of the public, and would provide an opportunity for the public to comment on name change proposals.
- Require the advisory board to make recommendations to the Board on Geographic Names on geographic features to be renamed and to Congress on renaming Federal land units with offensive names.”
For example: “In 2015, 1,441 federally recognized places were identified as having questionable names. These places range from national forests, streams, and wilderness areas to features within the built environment such as bridges and monuments. . . . More than 600 places have the word ‘n – – – -,” a slur for Black people, in their name, according to a database from the US Geological Survey. In Oklahoma there is Dead N – – – – Spring, so-named because a deceased Black person was found there, according to the USGS. In New Mexico, there is a reservoir called W – – – – – – – Tank, named with a slur for Mexican people living in the US. N early 800 results are returned by the USGS database when searching for the term ‘s – – – -,’ an offensive word for Native American women.”
It’s fascinating how no one wants to actually use these words in articles that specifically are about them, so in some cases we are all left guessing at what the alleged “slur” actually is. In the above quote, “n – – – – ” is supposed to be a slur for black. The usual “slur” for black is “nigger,” or “n – – – – -,” which has one more dash than in this article, so it likely isn’t nigger. We can only assume this stands for “negro,” which isn’t a “slur” towards blacks by any stretch of the imagination. We assume that most blacks would be a lot more upset at being called a nigger than being called a negro. The New Mexico reservoir named “W – – – – – – – Tank” we’re inferring is likely wetback. And the “slur” for an American Indian woman probably is squaw.
But the point is that the government shouldn’t be wasting our money on this woke nonsense; these people are elected to govern, not be our conscience or to codify their own moral standards and imposing them on the rest of us. Aren’t there hungry children that need feeding? Isn’t there some sort of pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans? Aren’t there roads and bridges falling down all around us? Aren’t the entire east and west coasts going to be underwater in 10 years? And isn’t the entire west on fire? These and dozens of other issues are way more important than the congenital virtue-signaling of the woke crowd, and none of us are going to be any better off if they keep up with this crap. We should tell these clowns to get back to work or get another job.