@runswimyoga In defense of @hebegebe , his hypotheticals about Morse, Yale, etc. could become the next renaming targets. This Calhoun decision may have broad implications beyond just renaming Yale’s Calhoun College. I keep wondering which colleges will see renaming eruptions next. I think hebegebe’s hypotheticals are very relevant.
The over the top hyperbole is really getting to be a bit too much. We get it. When Calhoun modernized the War Department in the 1820s, when he clashed with Andrew Jackson in the 1830s over the power of the federal government to restrict imported manufacturing goods or when he opposed the Mexican American War in the 1840s he did so because he was a no good racist. Nothing else matters.
Nothing exists in vacuum. Therefore, it is more than logical to ask what is your point about Calhoun vs. others. This idea that an issue, such as renaming, relates only to one person is assumes something has no other effects, which we know is not true.
Ironically, your response proves @hebegebe 's point. I will ask it this: Let’s take your premise of “at all costs” - Then, if someone was only trying to ensure the enslavement of blacks half the time, a quarter of the time, but not at all costs, then that person is OK to have something named after them? Do not get the logic, as it is set up to accept the same act, as acceptable from some, but not others.
@runswimyoga It’s not hypothetical when some are actually suggesting that the name “Yale” should be on the table (as shown in one of the links on the Calhoun College homepage). One could dismiss these people as being on the fringe and relatively few in number, and argue that the Yale name is too important to change. I would remind anyone who would do this, though, that given Elihu Yale’s personal history as someone whose livelihood and wealth derived from the slave trade, and who actually presided over the enslavement of people, you may stand accused of what you claim the anti-renamers are doing: minimizing the pain some feel being part of an institution named after someone deeply implicated in slavery, because you think it would be wrong to change a name.
What I was trying to bring out in one of my previous posts is that if you argue that the Calhoun name should be changed because of how it makes some people feel, and you believe that their feelings (which I don’t question) are the most important value, when some number of people come to feel that the Yale name is equally paining and should be changed, I don’t know on what basis you say no to them. Actually, I do: you say to them that the damage that would be caused by changing the Yale name outweighs whatever a relatively small number of people feel about it, no matter how sincerely they feel it. But if you say that, be prepared to be called a racist.
CDD14
“Unwashed masses”…use of term speaks volumes about your preconceived notions.
And yes I’m proud…proud of him irregardless of the school he got into.
You should be proud of him, @tonymom - he’s one of the luckiest kids on earth (although I have no doubt he earned his place). Particularly lucky because, judging from your avatar, he’s in Branford College, which is named after a town.
To the point that this is a one time only thing, to be viewed within the context solely of Yale and Calhoun College (if not solely within the black community members of said college) I would remind all of you that Princeton just went through a very similar debate about an actual, over the top for his time stone cold racist when a group of protestors tried to compel the University to rename Wilson College and the Wilson school. Nothing is ever only about itself.
I would be amazed if any of you truly believed that the various protests we have seen over the last two to three years were all completely localized and independant of each other.
" Particularly lucky because, judging from your avatar, he’s in Branford College, which is named after a town."
Birthplace of Henry Plant - known Confederate who ran Southern Express Company - chief collector of tariffs for the Confederacy…might be the next name to fall…slippery slope and all that stuff.
I’m kind of amazed you are maintaining that petitions/protests to rename because of racist connotations is a 2-3 year old phenomenon. Or that it is limited to college students.
And how many fairies are dancing on the head of that pin? So what that someone happened to be born in a certain town. This is getting ridiculous.
Fair enough, @maroon79, but Branford College had Rory Gilmore, which surely must make up for Henry Plant being born in Branford, CT.
I should have noted, incidentally, that @tony is particularly fortunate because Branford is far and away the most beautiful of the colleges.
I never said that, as I am sure you know. Heck, you quoted what I actually said. Do you have some issue with the words I actually used?
To those of you arguing these other hypotheticals matter bc “what if” … I am pretty certain each individual case of renaming (or whatever) will be decided by the schools, towns, and people affected on their own merits of that individual case. Each case will be weighed on its own merits- or lack there of. Many things may change, many may not change.
I will guess that Yale WILL rename (or hyphenate) Calhoun. Yale has already broken with tradition/history many times, but recently by changing the title of “master” (for the purists here where is your outrage?) bc it was demeaning, insensitive and psychological offensive to black students. When Yale tried to keep the name Calhoun intact, there was further outcry from students, faculty and others. Obviously the problem was not solved to any satisfaction that would allow it to rest.
Yes, there are and will be precedents set but specifics of cases matter too… Therefore I will guess that Yale will NOT change its Yale name so you can hold your outrage.
The cases are being decided not on merit (alone) but on expediency - the principle for the Yale name is the same, but the cost is too great.
@sorghum got there ahead of me while I was writing (we even had some of the same phrases)…here’s my longer response to @runswimyoga:
I think you’re actually agreeing with my point, which is that what you’re calling “on its own merits” actually means that sometimes those making decisions on behalf of an entire community - meaning all the constituencies in it - are compelled to tell one or more constituencies that no, they can’t have what they want, no matter how much they want it or how pained they feel by the status quo. In other words, the decisionmakers conclude that what certain groups want has “merit” that overrides the perceived needs of others. This, ultimately, is politics, and the results reflect relative power, and the effective use of that power, in the moment.
We can confidently predict what’s going to happen to the 1, 5, 10, 50 or whatever number of people ultimately conclude that attending a university named after a corrupt enthusiastic slave trader named Elihu Yale is painful to them, so painful that it’s affecting their psychological wellbeing. They’ll be told, in effect, we hear you, but the greater good requires you to live with this situation, racist though you may deem this decision to be. We might rename Calhoun because there are up to 40-50 black Hounies who could be suffering (along with a lot of outraged allies), but notwithstanding there are something like 600 black undergraduates in Yale College, and Elihu Yale was right up there with John C. Calhoun on the racism/slavery scale, no matter how much you and your allies are suffering, Yale won’t be renamed. Maybe you’ll get some plaques and art. The costs of renaming are too high, and too many constituents won’t stand for it.
That kind of calculation is why Princeton won’t walk away from racist, active segregationist Woodrow Wilson.
I agree - I think there will be a deliberation by the new committee, after which Yale will rename Calhoun, either by dropping the name or hyphenating it with something else. I think the committee has been organized in the way it has in the conscious or unconscious hope that it will arrive at exactly that conclusion and stop there, producing guidelines that will effectively rule out renaming most of the other colleges and leave the Yale name in the clear. Some will be disappointed, even pained, by the result. At the end, the committee will be deemed to have rendered a Solomonic judgment, and those who don’t like it will blame the committee and not the administration. Those agitating for renaming will move on to thinking of new names. Most importantly, the committee process will - many devoutly hope - put this issue to bed, at least for a while.
But let’s not kid ourselves - this is politics, where the results flow from power and the effective use of it, in the moment.
@Ohiodad51 I guess I misunderstood your point. You’re saying one protest leads to another, or what?
Georgetown recently renamed two dorms because a few hundred years ago the people who the dorms were named after traded a couple of slaves to help fund the university, thus upsetting some SJWs.
Wow, crazy that people today get upset just because someone “traded a couple of slaves.” Those millennial SJWs!
So, do you think Yale should be renamed, usualhopeful?
No, I just thought the wording of SFS’ was seriously problematic.