The problem of cowering to and enabling SJW's

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The school board of the San Francisco Unified School District just agreed to move ahead with a plan to change the names of more than 40 schools that now honor presidents and other historical figures. They include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and current Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

The panel voted 6-1 late Tuesday to approve the plan, which calls for removing from schools names of those who “engaged in the subjugation and enslavement of human beings,” “oppressed women,” committed acts that “led to genocide,” or who “otherwise significantly diminished the opportunities of those amongst us to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The San Francisco Unified board’s action is part of a movement ongoing for years to get school districts around the country to remove from schools the names of Confederate figures and others who symbolize the country’s racist past.

The resolution, based on the work of the School Names Advisory Committee that met for more than a year on the issue, calls on the public to submit new names for the schools by April 19 — timing that was questioned by San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D).

She said in a statement that she understood “the significance of the name of a school,” but: “What I cannot understand is why the School Board is advancing a plan to have all these schools renamed by April, when there isn’t a plan to have our kids back in the classroom by then.

“Our students are suffering, and we should be talking about getting them in classrooms, getting them mental health support, and getting them the resources they need in this challenging time. Our families are frustrated about a lack of a plan, and they are especially frustrated with the fact that the discussion of these plans weren’t even on the agenda for last night’s School Board meeting.”

School board President Gabriela López said, however, that the renaming is “an opportunity for our students to learn about the history of our school’s names, including the potential new ones.”

For each name it wanted to change, the advisory committee offered a specific reason.

For Abraham Lincoln High School, the explanation on the spreadsheet was far longer, saying in part that Abraham Lincoln, who freed Black slaves, “is not seen as much of a hero at all among many American Indian Nations and Native peoples of the United States, as the majority of his policies proved to be detrimental to them …”

Roosevelt Middle School, the spreadsheet says, was named for president Theodore Roosevelt, who, it said, opposed “civil rights and suffrage for Black folks.” It also made a case against naming a school after his distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, saying in part, he “refused to support anti-lynching bill (proposed by his wife) and other racist policies/views.”

The decision by the San Francisco school board to move forward with replacing the names of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and other prominent historical figures from dozens of public schools is getting some pushback from residents, public officials and advocacy groups.

But the move has sparked criticism for various reasons.

“This is a bit of a joke. It’s almost like a parody of leftist activism,” said Gerald Kanapathy, a father of a kindergartener at a San Francisco school not on the list to be renamed, according to The Associated Press.

Lope Yap Jr., vice president of San Francisco’s George Washington High School alumni association, pushed back against the board’s decision.

“We feel that whether socialist, conservative or independent, if you honor truth in history, politics needs to be put to the side,” Yap told The New York Post. “We don’t want to erase things.”

“They forget that abolitionists praised Abraham Lincoln,” he told the outlet.

After the vote, San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D) lashed out at the decision, questioning the board’s priorities.

“I understand the significance of the name of a school, and a school’s name should instill a feeling of pride in every student that walks through its doors, regardless of their race, religion or sexual orientation,” Breed said in a statement.

“What I cannot understand is why the School Board is advancing a plan to have all these schools renamed by April, when there isn’t a plan to have our kids back in the classroom by then,” she said, as schools are still closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, more than 9,000 people have signed an online petition asking the school board to “stop wasting time and money renaming the schools and focus on educating our kids.”

How much money does it cost to change the name of a school? the 9000 MAGA parents wasting their time on a petition should perhaps be more concerned about their children's education than the name plaque on the school.

Then, after "replacing the plaque", you have to:
Replace signage on\around the property.
Produce new letterhead\stationary.
Produce new\replace existing advertising\promotional material.
Replace labeling on assets (such as library books).
Replace uniform components (for example, jumpers) which have school logo with name affixed.
And probably quite a bit more.

And then there is the loss of "good-will" associated with a brand (in this case a school's name) should it be linked to student results which are better than equivalent\alternatives in the region.

The initial costs are not borne out on the parents but rather the school district/education budget so they financial outlay should hardly concern the parents.

Principle\head of school district:
We appologise to all students\parents, but due to the costs involved with renaming the school, we have had to unfortunately <cut programs>\<reduce teaching\student support staff levels>\<restrict access to out of hours services>\<increase fees>\<insert choice of "cost saving" measure where funds can be reallocated from an area\program in order to cover these new costs>

I doubt other schools in the area would be inclined to sacrifice their own funding to cover the costs of renaming a different school, so you are left with the school involved reducing the quality of the service they supply to students, or having the parents cover it, either directly (through fees\levies), or increased taxes...

Wouldn't this vary between jurisdictions how the cost is borne out? I read 20% of school boards in the US have already voted to ditch condederate names
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcev ... 6e4d11754d

This would indicate a willingness on the part of the school stakeholders (parents, teachers and students) to spend money to pay for this transition. Many of the schools are quite creative how they get the money

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news ... 112286436/
https://news.wjct.org/post/crowdfunding ... identities

There seems to be great enthusiasm to remove the stain of slavery from places of education. I am sure you should applaud the motion by these school members in their efforts to cleanse these schools of such a legacy.

I was simply pointing out that there is a lot more involved (and so more costs which have to be covered somehow) than simply "changing the name on a plaque", which was presented as the sole detail which people (collectively categorised derogatively here as "MAGA parents") could possibly have had an issue with.

I can't pretend to know why a parent would sign a petition to keep a racist confederate name but it certainly doesn't endear them as warm caring individuals.

While the Republican Party grapples with out-of-control extremism in its midst, many Democrats, and many liberal pundits, are anxious to reassure the public that the Democratic Party is the voice of sanity, its radicals relegated to the fringe.

Then along comes the San Francisco Board of Education, voting to strip 44 city schools of their historic names because of a link to white supremacy and other forms of oppression. The canceled include not only George Washington, Paul Revere, and Abraham Lincoln, but also Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a prominent liberal, pioneering female politician, and supporter of gay rights and other progressive causes.

There are many reasons this decision is ludicrous. One is that the school board is focusing on window-dressing instead of the important challenges of schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

No less important, though, is the underlying principle: that we must stop honoring everything in U.S. history that doesn’t meet modern-day standards of morality.

The renaming spree erases nuance. Thus, one thing held against Lincoln is the 1862 hanging of 38 Native American men for an attack on white settlers in Minnesota — probably the largest mass execution in U.S. history. But Lincoln’s defenders point out that he faced tremendous pressure from Congress as well as the threat of vigilante violence against Native Americans. Even so, he reduced the number of death sentences to 38 from more than 300.

In other cases, the renaming campaign has mangled facts, as noted by Joe Eskenazi, a columnist for the San Francisco news site Mission Local. Revere is accused of participating in the conquest of the Penobscot nation; in fact, he took part in the Penobscot Expedition against British troops during the Revolutionary War.

The rationale for canceling Feinstein is especially absurd. In 1984, while she was mayor of San Francisco, a communist activist tore down a Confederate battle flag outside San Francisco’s Civic Center — part of an 18-flag display, installed 20 years earlier, symbolizing various aspects of American history. The flag was replaced by the Recreation and Parks Department, then torn down again. She then announced that it would not be reinstalled, at the request of African American Board of Supervisors member Doris Ward. But she is blamed for the flag’s initial replacement — which she did not personally greenlight.

At heart, the renaming effort is about apologizing for America’s existence and declaring that nothing in U.S. history can be celebrated except for the struggle of historically oppressed groups. (Of course, if morally absolutist standards were applied to that struggle, it could not be celebrated, either.)

A contestant on "Jeopardy!" took to social media to denounce white supremacy and racism after he was accused of flashing a hand gesture during the show that many interpreted as being similar to a that of a white power symbol. Nearly 600 former "Jeopardy!" contestants also called out the game show, saying it was within the show's power to edit out the gesture -- something they claim it has done before.

Kelly Donohoe held up three fingers across his chest with his thumb and index finger folded together during Tuesday's episode of "Jeopardy!" He had held up one and two fingers in previous episodes to indicate the number of wins he had achieved, according to multiple reports.

But some fans thought it might be an "OK" symbol. The gesture became fodder for a trolling campaign on the website 4chan a few years ago to dupe viewers into thinking the fingers formed the letters "W'' and "P'' to mean "white power." But the Anti-Defamation League said extremists ended up adopting it as a sincere expression of white supremacy.

The gesture, when used for that purpose, generally is presented to clearly show the circle formed by the thumb and index finger together. Donohue held his fingers sideways across his chest, so such a circle would not be clearly visible.

Boston.com reports that Donohue initially responded to the controversy by saying on Facebook, “That’s a 3. No more. No less." But he was reportedly criticized for not having a more forceful condemnation. That post is no longer visible. Also now missing from his public-facing Facebook page is a Facebook cover photo with an image of Frank Sinatra making a similar gesture.