On a recent Jon Stewart Daily Show, there was a segment on Rick Perry’s ranch named N*head, as well as lakes, cities (I think) with N*****, such as NLake, NY. If those anecdotes are true, why haven’t steps been taken to change those
names?
Joan at maxangel95@comcast.net
The name of Perry’s ranch is not N****head.
Moved to proper forum. No harm, no foul.
In Perry’s case, it wasn’t exactly the name of the camp, but rather a name painted on a rock nearby. It was changed eventually, but not for several years after Perry noted it.
In general, it’s just inertia. No one goes to the trouble to make the change for a small lake or stream in a remote area.
There was a case in Australia, which at first was like this
but ended up like this
How 'bout Nigton, TX, settled by. . . descendants of former slaves.
There is Squaw Lake, Minnesota.
In the 1990’s the state passed legislation requiring renaming of all geographical features with the word squaw in them. The town resisted at that time, and as far as I know continues to use the name.
Don’t look at me. I come from the Hawkeye State.*
*Which probably still pisses off people because it’s for Black Hawk - even if it is supposed to be complimentary.
There is (or was last I heard) a creek in the North Cascades in WA called something like Nigger Joe Creek. It had an interesting history in that the area was actually settled by a black prospector who went by that name. In the 90’s when the state made an effort to change the name, his descendents, some of whom still lived in the area, came out and opposed wiping their ancestor’s name off the map (the proposed replacement was some bland name like “Pine Creek” or something like that). I think they tried to come up with some sort of compromise like simply dropping the first part, but there was already a Joe Creek nearby. I never did hear what happened with it-- I should try to dig up some old newspaper articles on it.
I am not sure if it’s still the case, but as recently as around 10 or 15 years ago, there was a little slot canyon off of the Colorado River about 10 miles from Moab Utah, (which is right near Arches National Park) named Nigger Bill’s Canyon, complete with a sign at the mouth of the trail stating the name.
I think the topographical maps of the area also had the name printed; it wasn’t merely a long-forgotten local nickname, but the recognized, official title.
The odd thing is that there may currently still be less black residents per capita in that area (near the Four Corners) than just about anyplace in the entire USA, nevermind a hundred years ago, and the story was that there was an old black miner who was actually a well-regarded member of the community in the early 1900’s, and the canyon was originally named in his honor, as that was the name he was known to all his friends by…:eek:
It seems like the name was (fairly) recently re-named something like Black Bill’s Canyon, but I haven’t been back down there for a while.
Bristol in England, has a street named Blackboy Hill. Interestingly, it is at the end of Whiteladies Road.
Bristol was the main port from which the Atlantic slave trade operated.
Wikipedia claims that the Blackboy Hill street name is not connected with the slave trade, but rather comes from an inn called The Blackboy that once stood there. However, this logic seems faulty. The inn name may have preceded the street name, but seems likely to have been connected to the slave trade itself.
The Wikipedia entry also seems to imply that the name Blackboy Hill is informal, and not the official street name, but I am pretty sure that when I lived in Bristol in the 1970s it was up on the street signs. Perhaps it has since been officially changed for reasons of political correctness, but is still in use informally by the locals.
And note that the vast majority of the residents of the town are Native Americans (about 2/3rds, as I recall), so they could easily vote to change the name, if they were offended.
I used to live next to the Fort Worth suburb of White Settlement, which, if Wikipedia is to be believed, is where the white settlers settled.
The US Board on Geographic Names has a policy on this matter: (PDF)
POLICY V: DEROGATORY NAMES
The guiding principle of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names for the names of places, features,
and areas in the United States and its territories is to adopt for official Federal use the names
found in present-day local usage. An exception to this principle occurs when a name is shown to
be highly offensive or derogatory to a particular racial or ethnic group, gender, or religious
group. In such instances, the Board does not approve use of the names for Federal maps, charts,
and other publications.
The Board, however, is conservative in this matter and prefers to interfere as little as possible
within the use of names in everyday language because attitudes and perceptions of words
considered to be pejorative vary between individuals and can change connotation from one
generation to another. Geographic names are part of the historical record of the United States,
and that record may be either distorted or disrupted by the elimination of names associated with
particular groups of Americans. Such unwarranted action by the Board could, in time, be a
disservice to the people the process is meant to protect.
In (I think) 1963, the BGN recognized that the pejorative form of Negro was regarded universally as an unacceptable term, and so changed all such references in geographic names to Negro. In 1974, it made the same decision to change universally Jap to Japanese. On two occasions in the 1990s, the BGN was asked to make the term Squaw the third such designation, but after two years or so of analysis and investigation, the board decided that the term Squaw would not be changed universally basically because there was some doubt on all uses being pejorative. Several states have not been so careful with research, and have mandated changes to Squaw names.
Squaw Valley California actually has the distiction of hosting the 1960 winter olympics, though I believe it has since been renamed Olympic Valley.
My surname is Blackman and one of my ancestors was a great explorer, unfortunately, due to PC whining, every place named after him has been changed.
When I was in Wales I had drinks in the Black Boy Inn. (Their logo is a black African boy.)
And there is Cecil Adams, devoted to fighting ignorance, who has undertaken to explain the truth behind the notion that “squaw” has an offensive origin.
Did they change the placenames to Namkalb?