It’s actions like these that make the GOP look tone deaf on racial issues at best, and racist at worse.
Now, when I read about efforts to rename geographic places with “squaw” in the name, I thought it was polical correctness. I laughed when one locality was ordered to change a name and came up with Politically Correct Lake.
But why should anyone be fighting a change like this? It’s not just about a debatable claim on where the word “squaw” came from. It’s about honoring someone who served her country.
One of the objections cited was this:
IIRC, this was also used to prevent Barry Goldwater’s name from going on a mountain. Fine. Fair is fair. But it seems to me a compromise could be reached. Pass a resolution saying the mountain will be named for Piestewa after the appropriate time has passed. Everyone wins.
What precisely is the GOP fighting for here? What is at stake? Why can’t the Republican Party understand that by making a stand like this, it reaffirms the worst impression possible?
Um, maybe I’m missing something here, but what did Pfc. Piestawa actually do besides get killed, so that she deserves having an entire mountain named after her? Did she lead her platoon out of an ambush? Did she take out a whole bunch of Iraqi foxholes? Did she have a long and distinguished military career? No, no, and no.
She was there. She got killed. So did others. So why her?
[channeling the Guv]
“Hey, she’s young, she’s female, she’s Native American, she represents ‘women in combat’, and she died in the service of her country. It’s a no-brainer–let’s put her name on a mountain and thereby automatically please a goodly percentage of our constituency…”
So, um, yeah, I’d have to agree with the Arizona GOP–sounds to me like the Guv is grandstanding for political effect. She just barely won election in 2002, 47% to 44%, so I can see where she’d think that on behalf of her party in 2004, she has to scramble for any points she can get. I’m such a cynic.
And I also have to agree with the Arizona Geographic and Historic Names Board. There’s a reason they have rules prohibiting naming stuff after people as soon as they die, and it’s precisely because of this sort of thing: politicians wanting to make hay out of the death of somebody. It’s also probably due to folks just generally getting all worked up when somebody famous and important dies, so the Board makes you wait five years to be sure the person is really famous enough, and important enough, and still universally lamented enough, to be worthy of having a mountain named after him.
I’ll bet that in five years, nobody except Google and people in Tuba City will remember who Pfc. Lori Piestawa was.
I personally believe any name would be better than Squaw Peak. Perhaps it could be named Big Dumb Racist Redneck Peak instead. I’m sure that wouldn’t offend anyone. Right?
Pretty good if that meant he had been dead for 5 years. Preferably with a stake thru his heart, burned, and ashes scattered. Of course, if brain dead qualifies …
Who cares if it is for political grandstanding? So what? If it gets the gov. votes, then obviously it was something that people wanted anyway.
You don’t mean to imply that politicians don’t really believe in the things they say and/or do, do you? (sarcasm).
Changing the name from Squaw Peak. or whatever, is a positive thing, no matter what the real political motivation. So Republicans want to block it so that the Dem. Governor can’t use it to gain votes? Which is the larger evil here, exploiting the death of a person to please your constituents, or keeping “squaw” in the name of a mountain just to prevent your opponent from getting votes?
Both motivations suck, but one results in removing an offensive name from a landmark and pleasing a lot of people. The other results in more negative feelings about politics in general, and the mountain keeps an offensive name.
Yikes! I never understood the vitriol against Reagan, I mean it’s like getting pissed at the Queen. They’re just figureheads, folks.
I’m afraid cameraboy you are presenting a false choice. I’m sure there are plenty of names the gov could choose. Also, that it would garner him some votes does not mean “that’s what the people want”. I’m sure if he put any effort into it he could find a name that fits the rules and still crassly schmuzes some section of the electorate.
Ok, good point there. I guess I’m just not bothered by the name that they want to change Squaw Peak to. It really doesn’t bother me that the gov. wants to name the peak after a Native American woman who died in Iraq.
So is there a move now to pick a different name? Would that upset people who were excited about naming the peak after Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa?
If it garners the Gov. some votes, it’s at least what SOME people want, namely the people who would be won over by that sort of thing.
I just figure, why not name the peak after Piestewa? So there’s some schmuzing. Big deal. Just ignore the schmuzing and vote for someone else, if the schmuzing is that offensive. I find the move to block the schmuzing more distasteful than the schmuzing.
When Oswald shot Kennedy, he was insane
But still we watch the re-runs again and again
We all sit glued while the killer takes aim
“Hey Mom, there goes a piece of the President’s brain!”
It is my observation that American Indians are very serious about the exemplary and sometimes unique services they have provided the US armed forces in virtually every American conflict. (I just learned today that there were Choctaw Code Talkers serving in France in the First World War.)
The Hopi tribe won’t soon forget Piestewa. Whether or not that justifies changing the name of a mountain because people think it’s offensive even after Cecil disabused them isn’t a question I feel I can answer.
I have one simple question…
When has a government official named a major geographical feature after another person for any reason other than to score political points? Its not like this is even close to the first time.
As some may recognize, we have few mountains out here in the Midlands—for that matter we have few big hills—and thus can’t name one after anybody. Instead we name streets. Almost before the smoke had dissipated in 1918 we named the DesMoines to Ames road the “Merle Hay Road” after a local boy who managed to get himself killed in a minor trench raid the first night American troops were on the front line in WWI. All he did was get killed. If we can name a major landmark after this kid, thus preserving in some way the memory his and others’ sacrifice, why can’t the State of Arizona do the same, or at least be honest why not?
Yeah, but AZ, 126 other GIs sacrificed their lives for our country, too. Why not one of them?
So,why her and why not any of them? What makes Lori special? Answer–she’s young and female, and ethnic, and a Mom, and came from a state whose governor’s political party can use the public relations boost it would get by naming a mountain after a young, female, mother-of-two ethnic GI who sacrificed her life for her country.
Here’s a good question: Do you honestly think they’d be proposing this if she’d died, say, by drowning in a canal, or when her truck rolled into a ravine, or in a helicopter accident, or by “illness”, or by a “non-combat weapon discharge”? No, it’s the magic word “combat” that bumped her up to the head of the Mountain-naming list.
If ya wanna name a mountain after a GI who died in combat, you ought to name it after someone who deserves being memorialized for posterity for conspicuous bravery or sacrifice or long years of service or something, “46 years a staff sergeant and he died with his boots on”, that sort of thing.
Now, me, I’d vote for “Jessica Lynch Mountain”, even if she ain’t dead yet. And I’ll tell ya, it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with her being “pretty”, but with her having endured being captured and tortured. Whereas Pfc. Piestawa–I’m sorry, I know this sounds harsh–was only “killed”.
I mean, come on, Lynch didn’t have to give the ultimate sacrifice. And the elevated attention she has received, versus the other soldiers of her unit that actually died, is nothing short of racism.
Why Piestawa?
Because she was from Arizona. Because she is native American. And because the peak was originally named with a term referencing a female native American - a term that has derogatory connotations.
So why Piestawa? Because it is appropriate. I’m all for waiting five years to fit within the “rules”, but I cannot think of any more appropriate name for the Phoenix landmark - mountain and freeway.
I first read “Iraqi guy tells Kerry Sanders she was being tortured” on CNN.com, the day the story broke, but they are no longer featuring it on their website.
First off, remember that there’s been controversy over the name Squaw Peak for quite some time – they’ve been trying to get it changed but no consensus has emerged on a new name. Given current political pressure, the name of that mountain is very likely to be changed sometime soon, and this strikes me as being seen as a good opportunity to do so. It’s likely not going to remain Squaw Peak for five more years, and there’s no possibility of an interim name (The Peak soon to be named Piestewa Peak?)
The state leans significantly GOP anyway (Arizona voter registrations as of the 2002 general election were 41.52% GOP, 35.87% Dem, 21.97% Other and 0.64% Green), and given current pro-GOP sentiments, I wonder if Gov. Napolitano could do much for her party for the 2004 elections.
My suspicion is that the governor’s larger goal is to make herself look good for future political advancement. In her first 100 days in office, she has already made three trips to Washington, D.C., has asked for a D.C. office, and for what it’s worth, the major state paper has speculated on her future ambitions. While certainly she wants to aid her own party, it might be that she’s trying to get this name change for even more personal political ambitions.
