No black person – or white person – will ever claim that lives were changed with the changing of the name on a Yale college. But symbols matter, Pizzagirl. You KNOW they do. There’s a reason why the Confederate flag sparks the reaction that it does. Or people dancing around in blackface – that too is shocking for many who know the history behind it. It’s OK to condemn certain symbols and actions. It really is.
Now, I personally don’t know if removing the name IS the right thing to do. I like your idea of making this a teachable moment, and actually drawing people’s attention to Calhoun’s very mixed legacy. But – hee hee – I doubt Yale will agree to this. IT doesn’t want to be associated with slavery… which brings us back to the original point: if Calhoun is so obscure, why leave the name on the college? And if he’s really so repellent a figure why not rename it? I’m willing to discuss this, and be persuaded.
What I find objectionable is belittling people’s “feelings” about this. To a lot of people – and clearly to these Yale students – slavery is no small little historical hiccup. It should elicit a strong response in all thinking people.
“So the Native Americans of today should just shut up and celebrate Columbus Day; Jews should chalk up Nazi war crimes as obedience to a military culture and 21st century university students should overlook that they live in a building honoring the memory of a man who, according to a popular online encyclopedia is “best known for his defense of slavery” at a time when Harriet Beecher Stowe was busy scribbling Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
Should everything named Lindbergh be renamed? Just asking.
My alma mater has a Ford Center for engineering design. Should that be renamed too? I mean, how can you possibly expect Jewish students to walk into a place funded by a company that had an anti-Semitism leader at the helm? Why is this not equally as important?
Several buildings at my alma mater are named for donors who came from meat packing families (Armour, Swift, etc,). You expect vegetarians to live, work and sleep in horror houses built on the souls of dead animals? What about their feelings?
"But – hee hee – I doubt Yale will agree to this. IT doesn’t want to be associated with slavery… which brings us back to the original point: if Calhoun is so obscure, why leave the name on the college? "
Are you kidding me? Because presumably he (or his descendants, I don’t know) funded the university and/or that hall at some significant level.
Is there some new rule I’m not aware of that says that names on college buildings have to be “famous” or influential in American history? Why can’t they be simply rich and obscure?
If Calhoun were just Joe Schmoe Calhoun, everyday good old boy who left money to Yale way back when but had no other claim to fame, you wouldn’t claim that his obscurity was a reason to take him off the name of a building. This is grasping at straws here.
“You KNOW they do. There’s a reason why the Confederate flag sparks the reaction that it does. Or people dancing around in blackface.”
Of course symbols matter. Re the Confederate flag, the battles there are typically about having it be flown or displayed by government entities, not private people or private institutions. As personally disgusting as I find the Conf flag, I don’t believe that I’ve ever argued private individuals shouldn’t be allowed to fly it. It will just mean consequences of being thought backwards, that’s all.
Do you think a hall named Calhoun is even remotely 1/100 of “fighting words” or incitement to violence as a Conf flag is?
"How would you feel then, to find out that your “founder” was somehow tainted, dirty, undesirable? "
This is where you go off the rails. I challenge you to find one major donor/benefactor (of a dorm, building, etc) -at Yale or elsewhere-with whom you agree perfectly on all issues and who has always been on the righteous side of the angels on every single topic. Did all the robber barons of the 19th century advocate for high minimum wages and OSHA safety regulations? Did they all equally support women’s suffrage?
If you need to have every building that you enter be founded/donated by only the perfect person, you’re going to have to wait a long time.
Btw, have students at Princeton expressed interest in renaming the Frist center (student center)? There are some things the Frist family has done I don’t agree with. And remind me again how many things the Koch brothers fund at MIT?
PG, you yourself brought up Calhoun’s obscurity in #136 or so. Today |F he’s known for anything it’s for his stance on slavery. Comparing someone like him to Lindbergh or Washington - people of major historical stature - is silly.
The big difference between the name “Yale” vs the Confederate flag or swastika is that the name “Yale” is not commonly equated with racism/ skinheads. Yale is a universally recognized, global brand that is equated with academic excellence.
This would be like an ultra valuable, globally prestigious brand like Rolex changing its name.
“PG, you yourself brought up Calhoun’s obscurity in #136 or so. Today |F he’s known for anything it’s for his stance on slavery. Comparing someone like him to Lindbergh or Washington - people of major historical stature - is silly.”
That’s not the argument I was making, though. Yes, Calhoun is “obscure” to the average person for two reasons - 1) they don’t remember him from history class (or never learned about him) and 2) the building in question is on a college campus that 99% of people don’t give one moment’s thought to and will never visit or see. (I know, this is unfathomable to consider that Joe Average hasn’t memorized the names of all Yale’s residential colleges! Surely they care!)
You were the one who tried to say “well, if he’s so obscure, why is his name still on the college?” Well honestly I laughed when I read that because I find that a non-sequitur because duh, his name is on a college because he donated funds to it. Plenty of “obscure” rich people have their names on buildings. His obscurity doesn’t disqualify him for having his name on a building, at Yale or otherwise. So I thought it was amusing you were trying to use his obscurity as a “reason” for taking him off. that was grasping at straws.
The name Calhoun etched into a stone building doesn’t have remotely the a) negative symbolism, b) exposure or c) implicit govt sanction as a Conf flag at a public state courthouse. It’s a ludicrous comparison.
So, there is a double standard. If it is a global brand that you like, then you give it a pass. But, if it smaller fry and you think you can bully other people, then you go after it.
Reminds me of the Rhodes scholar issue - take the statue down from Oxford, but keep the Rhodes Scholar name and money is because it is a global brand and many that these “outraged people” like are Rhodes scholars.
This strikes me as fake outrage, as people know Yale is not going to change its name, so they go after the smaller stuff. If the outraged people were consistent and real, they would go after the real big stuff that are the global brands. However, as usual, they get “bought off” by the global brand and selectivity accept that just fine.
I say move on to the future and stop worrying about the past. In essence, yes, get over it.
If I I kept dredging up every fight that I had with my husband in the past, I would be a very negative person to be around and we would be divorced for sure…
That is what this constant crticism of dead people feels like. Rehashing old sins that are over. The Yale kids and professors should focus on solving the real problems that impact black people and their futures, such as finding ways to reduce the high murder rate of blacks by blacks, and the high rate of crime and the high number of teen pregnancies in the poor black population.
Those are real problems to worry about. And I worry about them a lot.
Yep, some very highly educated black people agree with @albert69.
Walter Williams and several black scholars have written about this and all reached the conclusion that, as they condemn the slavery aspect of early US history, they also understood slavery was not uniquely American and was a commonplace practice throughout the world at one time.
These black scholars asked fellow black people a simple question: would you rather be in the free-est country in the world now or part of an African country of which there are, but a couple, which actually function in the entire continent?
Prime Meridian brought up the brand argument, not me. All I pointed out was that changing the name of a residential college wouldn’t affect Yale’s brand. It might affect Calhoun College’s brand, which may not be a bad thing.
And despite all these posts, I still don’t see why that’s such a bad idea. I don’t buy the Lindbergh argument, nor even the Henry Ford argument. Calhoun’s legacy is mostly if not entirely morally reprehensible. Neither Yale nor Calhoun’s descendants will suffer much if the college is renamed. If I were a Calhoun I’d probably be embarrassed that this nasty piece of family history was being scrutinised by students, the media and college boards.
In fact, there are only two reasons I can think of why Yale might not want to just give in to the students. One, it doesn’t want to encourage more historical scrutiny into its founders and donors. Or, two, it doesn’t want to set a precedent in which the institution gave in to student demands. Neither makes Yale look terribly good. But I doubt that looking good in this instance is something Yale cares about. The only ones who do seem to care much are some too-young-to-be-jaded undergrads and CC insomniacs.
And we all know why this will not happen because it requires looking inward, but it is much easier to blame a boogeyman, as the boogeyman let’s one off the hook for one’s own behavior. Convenient for the psyche, but the problems never, ever get solved, as people are blaming others and thus waiting for others to solve these issues for them.
Walter Williams is a somewhat notorious onservative commentator. Way to the right (and not nearly as well known) as, say, Ann Coulter. No surprise he wrote what he wrote.
As for Hubbard, even fellow state Republicans in Arkansas were appalled by his self-published book that claimed slavery was a blessing for African Americans. They roundly condemned it as highly offensive, divisive and inflammatory. He’s also quite white.
I’m very surprised to see it sourced as anything other than hate mongering on a college-related site. It’s like citing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
A) Did something very important. In Calhoun’s case he revolutionized the war department of a country so that the country could actually win wars, and continue to exist
B) Did some things we consider horrible now
C) Faded into relative obscurity
And then focus only on B, then you can justify getting rid of anyone’s legacy.
Those who dwell on the past will stay stuck in the past. With the exception of sex slaves, which involve all races, black slavery is hopefully forever dead in the USA. That is something to celebrate. Dead people, like Calhoun, and their no longer relevant actions can simply be ignored.
Colleges and employers are bending over backwards to attract black students. Stop the whining and take advantage of this new and wonderful world.
Like I said, the strongest message to Calhoun is to BE a black student rocking their time at Yale.
"Prime Meridian brought up the brand argument, not me. All I pointed out was that changing the name of a residential college wouldn’t affect Yale’s brand. It might affect Calhoun College’s brand, which may not be a bad thing.
And despite all these posts, I still don’t see why that’s such a bad idea. "
It’s not that it’s a bad idea. It’s that it’s a trivial window dressing idea. See the difference?
If we could take all the men whose names are found on old buildings on Ivy campuses, and we could somehow bring them back to life and put them in a room and ask their opinions, how many of them would have affirmatively been in favor of women attending these colleges? I’m willing to bet that number is pretty low. (And yes, I know, Cornell, yada yada.). I’m also willing to bet that if the topic came up during their lifetimes, they would have vociferously protested.
Does that invalidate the good they may have done for these colleges?
Why is nuance so difficult here? People can be forces of good but also reflect the thinking of their times. I talked upthread about Frances Willard who is all over my alma mater. She was a historical force for good re women’s suffrage and women’s empowerment, but in hindsight that Women’s Christian Temperance Union wasn’t such a hot idea because Prohibition failed. Now what?
People were functions of their times. You know something? Use their money for good and move on.