Be Careful What You Say
More time has passed since I composed the words above and this means the time remaining before the last midnight hour of 2016 has been reduced. Now rather than offering you a typical year-end list such as the “The Top Ten Ludicrous Episodes of 2016” I will simply use such incidents to offer some advice and predictions.
As a loyal reader you may recall that I have been lecturing to you about words you should no longer use. If you look under the label “Expurgations” you will find there that the last example I provided of a word that was to be expunged was “mistress”. To that you should now add the word “master”. It was often used to describe the position held by those who were the head of residences at Ivy League universities and it is no longer acceptable:
“The title of “master” has come under fire by some students at Harvard and other universities, including Yale and Princeton, for conjuring connotations of slavery, although its roots are from centuries-old European terms for a teacher, chief servant or head of household.”
I am not sure if one still will be able to get a master’s degree. Now that I think about it, the bachelor’s might even be problematic. If they are thinking about a new label and seeking gender parity in such matters they might want to rule out “spinster” as in “ I got my spinster’s from Stanford”.
The word “slavery” appears above and you are reminded to be cautious how you use it. A fellow at Wilfred Laurier University was just fired because his clearly humourous use of the word “slave” was found not to be funny. Nothing much is these days, including Halloween.
My final bit of linguistic advice: if you reside in the Occidental world it is best to avoid the use of the word “Oriental”. I realize that for many of us it seems harmless and that Oxford still has a “Faculty of Oriental Studies”, but unless you are talking about rugs stop using the word.
In fact, I suggest you not refer to any group of people. If you insist, however, here is the relevant portion of a new U.S. bill that attempts to modernize the terms applied to minorities. This should clarify things for you: “Section 211(f)(1) of the Department of Energy Organization Act (42 U.S.C. 7141(f)(1)) is amended by striking a Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut or is a Spanish speaking individual of Spanish descent and inserting Asian American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native.”
Perhaps, dear reader, I should pause here to provide an example of a related incident which I found to be ludicrous. If you think not, then perhaps you should not read on. It involved a poem and a reference to one of the groups referred to above. Some think the poem offensive; I do not. Here are the first few lines. You can look it up and decide for yourself.
Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?, Calvin Trillin, The New Yorker, April 4, 2016.
“Have they run out of provinces yet?
If they haven’t, we’ve reason to fret.
Long ago, there was just Cantonese.
(Long ago, we were easy to please.)
But then food from Szechuan came our way,
Making Cantonese strictly passé.
Szechuanese was the song that we sung,
Though the ma po could burn through your tongue.
Then when Shanghainese got in the loop
We slurped dumplings whose insides were soup.”
etc.
(See: “Calvin Trillin’s Poem on Chinese Food is Unpalatable to Some” The New York TImes, April 7, 2016.)
For a completely unrelated incident (except for its ludicrousness) consider the episode involving Gay Talese which happened around the same time as Trillin was being attacked. After he gave a talk at Boston College, a member of the audience asked him about what women authors had influenced him. Apparently he struggled to come up with an answer (the guy is a dapper dresser, but he is 84) and was immediately set upon by the twitter twits. I am pleased to report, however, that at least one woman came to his defense:
“He read what he read. The policing of inspiration and influence is really pathological. I believe it to be a feeding frenzy and sign of a debased discourse that passes for Internet culture. This is blood sport.” Katie Roiphe. (See: “Gay Talese Goes Through Twitter Wringer”, The New York Times, April 6).
Be Careful What You Sing
It is interesting, and an indicator of our troubled times, that politicians, both in my adopted country and the ones back in Maryland where I grew up, had to be mustered to re-consider the lyrics of their respective anthems. In Canada, Oh Canada, I am pleased to report, has been rendered gender neutral (from "true patriot love, in all thy sons command" was changed to "in all of us command,"). The spectacle was rather a sad one since the MP who introduced Bill C-210 was wheeled into the House although suffering from ALS.
In Maryland, many more lyrics were involved and the excision needed to be much more extensive; some want the entire song to be abandoned. The issue in this case was about race not gender. You would recognize the tune of “Maryland, My Maryland”("O Tannenbaum,"), but the lyrics which include such phrases as “Northern Scum” may be unfamiliar to you. They are based a poem by James Ryder Randall and you can look them up. I am not sure if this dispute has been completely resolved, but it is clear that the words of the anthem which were adopted in 1939 are not appropriate now.
NAMES
No More Name Calling
We move now from Words to Names, specifically personal ones, and the volume of my notes indicate that I should have started working on this subject well before my self-imposed midnight deadline. I will highlight just the most sensational cases and from them you should learn that you should not name anything after a person - especially not buildings on campuses.
I will present here just some of the cases and you can rank them in terms of egregiousness. I will leave it up to you whether you apply the word “egregious” to the historical ‘crime’ being addressed or to the current protest.
Woodrow Wilson at Princeton
You will be aware of this example which involves no less a personage than a President of Princeton who also held the less exalted position of POTUS. The students at Princeton ( and I am sure all students everywhere else) want the name “Woodrow Wilson” removed from everything since he was a racist. In addition, here are a few of their other demands (which are even more Orwellian):
“cultural competency training for the faculty and the staff; the inclusion in Princeton’s core curriculum requirements of a course on the history of a marginalized people; and the creation of a cultural space on campus dedicated to black students.”
I am not sure if CANCON rules apply to blogs, but if so this Canadian aside should cover me. Very recently at Ryerson University there was an incident that shows we also have a racist problem here (and as I suggested with the word ‘egregious’ above, use the word ‘problem’ where you think it applies). A black female was giving a speech at the School of Social Work when the Director committed the “violent act” of walking out of the room. It is not clear why he left the room , but he has resigned as the Director. One hates to rush to judgement, but to me it seems more likely that he had to pee than it is likely that someone who has risen to the directorship of a School of Social Work would be either a racist or misogynist.
John C. Calhoun at Yale
You are probably also aware of this incident since it generated quite a bit of news and commentary. In 1933 Yale University made the mistake of naming one of its residential colleges after Calhoun. Since Calhoun was a slave owner, not much more needs to be said. At this time ‘Calhoun College’ still stands although a committee is constructing a policy guide that will outline renaming rules. As I write, task forces on campuses everywhere are working to resolve these issues. If rules against plagiarism were not so strict at such places they could simply copy the new policy from the University of Oregon which allows for the renaming of buildings which were named after anyone “who demonstrated “discriminatory, racist, homophobic, or misogynist views that actively promoted systemic oppression” or who “failed to take redemptive action,” among other expansive criteria.”
Lord Jeffery Amherst at Amherst
Amherst College is named for the town in which it exists, but since the town was named for Lord Jeffery the college is guilty by association. Lord Jeffery himself is guilty of treating the indigenous residents rather harshly and may even have suggested providing them with smallpox-infected blankets. Hence, the mascot Lord Jeff has been banned and the words “Lord Jeffery” have disappeared from campus. What surely was seemingly the most innocent sport’s team name in the NCAA - “The Jeffs” - has been erased. While the student protests were successful, apparently some alumni were not happy.
As another Canadian aside I will note that Lord Jeffery’s legacy is under attack up here. There is a park on Prince Edward Island that is named after him and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has received a letter asking that it be renamed since "His name is a grave insult to the Mi'kmaq people of Prince Edward Island, the Atlantic region and to the rest of the aboriginal people in Canada.”
A Bunch of Guys at Georgetown University
The names that could be named at Georgetown are potentially more numerous since the Jesuit founders of that institution sold a bunch of their slaves to pay off some of the university debt. Two buildings so far have been temporarily renamed - Mulledy Hall is now Freedom Hall and McSherry Hall is now Remembrance Hall - and a “Working Group on Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation” is no doubt working hard to sort things out.
Do Larger Problems Loom?
So far we have discussed names and renaming in relation to buildings on campuses and I could go on. For example, just across the border from the District of Corruption they have renamed the stadium at the University of Maryland. Formerly ‘Byrd Stadium’, it is now temporarily called ‘Maryland Stadium’. Apparently old ‘Curley Byrd’ no longer meets the naming standards, even for stadiums, since he was a segregationist. There may be some irony here since one suspects that the stadium itself remains segregated, in that it is highly likely the team is largely black while the seats are occupied by the mainly white.
The larger issue relates to the complete university not just the structures on the campus. What if the name applied to the entire university is tainted? I feel that it is my duty to alert you to some possible problems. In short, you would short the following colleges and universities if they were stocks or securities. The alphabetical list by institution includes the name of the person along with the alleged ‘crime’.
Alcorn State (James L. He was a Confederate. Alcorn is largely black!)
Austin Peay (Austin Peay. Like Jefferson, fathered a black child.)
Clemson ( Thomas Green. Married Calhoun’s daughter - see Yale above.)
Drake (Francis Marion. Killed a few Pawnees.)
Duke ( James Buchanan. Tobacco.)
Furman (Richard. The slave thing.)
George Mason (George Mason. The slave thing. See my related post - ASSOL)
Hofstra (William S. Lumber business - open to the charge of despoliation.)
Lamar ( Mirabeau Buonaparte. Slave trader AND Cherokee/Comanche killer.)
Marshall (John. His papers are online at the UVA. Find the problem yourself.)
Rice (William Marsh. Guy was a capitalist and died a rather messy death.)
Stanford (Leland Jr. The son of a robber baron.)
Tulane (Paul. Confederate donor.)
Vanderbilt (Cornelius. Rich - “unmannered brute.”)
Yale (Elihu. Corruption charges. Elis may become as rare as Jeffs.)
Many colleges in the U.S. were founded by religious leaders and those named for such figures may be assumed to be safe from onomastic scrutiny (Wesleyan, for example) or maybe not (Oral Roberts). Otherwise if you are sending your sons or daughters off to college and you want them to have a ‘safe space’ , then perhaps you should consider a plainly-named land-grant university like the University of Iowa where the students are also likely to be less flighty.
As far as Canada goes, less work is required if you are trying to choose or avoid a university because of its name. Select one with a geographically-based name like ‘Toronto’, or ‘Western’ which could exist anywhere and is surely not offensive. You could simply avoid any college that is named for a person unless she is Emily Carr. In the east, for example, I would not choose Dalhousie without thoroughly vetting the Earl. In the far west the choice is easy. Go to UBC. It is clear that you should avoid Simon Fraser which will likely be attacked in the near future for reasons that are obvious.
I know I said I would keep this short, but I have failed and am still going. But, as an aside to the aside above I can’t help but wonder about what happened to Sir George Williams University in Montreal. Was it erased because Sir George was guilty of something? I recall a riot there and the takeover of the Henry F. Hall building. Was it because of the name of the building? I seem to remember that it had something to do with racism (see Ryerson above). I will leave it to you to sort this all out while I move on.
Do Even Larger Problems Loom?
Certainly. It is highly likely that this contagion will spread from university campuses to town commons. I have already mentioned Amherst and there are many other cities and towns named after people whose reputations are now dubious. If all of them are removed then we will have difficulty using our GPS. Until then perhaps a new kind of TripAdvisor will be required to let us know more about name origins if we are to avoid places named after culprits. For example, it could help us answer the question: should we visit Prince Rupert (either one of them)? We are also likely to have to rename places already re-named. You can still visit the hamlet Swastika, Ontario, but there is no Berlin in the province. It was renamed Kitchener. Wasn’t Lord Kitchener associated with the Empire? (on the other hand, he may have been a homosexual which should more than offset the other charge).
I do have to now consider the statue issue. If you want to read a very good book on applied toponymy see this one and start your new year off with a bit of self-improvement: From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow: How Maps Name, Claim, and Inflame, by Mark Monmonier - U. of Chicago Press.
Statues
Although they generally just sit or stand there silently they can still be problematic, even in Canada. You may recall that there was quite the kerfuffle on the campus of Wilfrid Laurier when it was suggested that 22 statues be erected, one for each Canadian Prime Minister. Although the University is named for one, the project was rejected on the grounds that the ground on which they would stand belongs to indigenous people who would be offended. As well, most of the PMs are the North American equivalent of DWEMs and they certainly no longer serve as role models at a place that is inclusionary and diverse. For those who care, it was recently announced that they have found a home at Castle Kilbride in Baden. Whether it will be a ‘safe space’ for them remains to be seen.
You may recall that I mentioned above that there was a controversy about Lord Amherst in P.E.I. There was a similar one in Nova Scotia over the statue of Cornwallis. The gist of the matter will be obvious from this news report: There was a “flare-up in Nova Scotia in December over a statue of Edward Cornwallis in a Halifax park. A plaque notes that Cornwallis founded the city in the 1700s but fails to mention a scalping proclamation he offered against the Mi'kmaq. It promised "a reward of ten Guineas for every Indian Micmac taken or killed, to be paid upon producing such Savage taken or his scalp." I have not bothered to see if he is still around.
Elsewhere there was the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign that spread from South Africa to the entrance of Oxford’s Oriel College. Some were irritated that the leader of the protesters who insisted that Cecil had to go was Ntokozo Qwabe who was attending Oxford on, you guessed it, a Rhodes Scholarship. He told the BBC he felt “the same way [about the Rhodes statue as] I would feel if I saw a statue of Hitler in Germany”. And Tadiwa Madenga, a Zimbabwean student at Oxford, said the statue reminded her of the struggles her family had had in colonial Rhodesia. “We’ve lived in places where we’ve seen the consequences [of colonialism] and it still deeply affects us, this kind of memory of British imperialism.” At this time, Cecil is still standing.
What Is To Be Done?
I will attempt to offer some solutions and suggestions so that the coming year might be more peaceful.
Some Solutions:
Words:
I will begin by admitting that there is not much one can do about the problems with WORDS; there are simply too many of them. Just remember the advice I offered above - Be Careful About What You Say or Sing.
Names:
There are also a lot of NAMES and many are problematic. I have already offered the best solution which is not to name anything after a person. Since that advice will not be welcomed in development offices on campuses, I suggest you at least be cautious. For example, at Wake Forest where a new dorm is going to be named in honour (honor down there) of Maya Angelou they could consider temporarily calling it “The Bird Cage” to see if this clever allusion creates any controversy (if any Deacs happen to read this, feel free to use that appellation without acknowledging me).
You saw the enormity of the issue involving Place Names and I only mentioned cities and towns. What about the problems involving street names! If you insist on proceeding, start locally and then move across the globe. I am willing to help. I grew up in the town named “Princess Anne” in Maryland. I can do some checking and see if she remains suitable. If not, I even have a solution. The town could be re-named “Simpkinsville” in honour (honor down there) of Lloyd “Hot Dog” Simpkins. He served in the navy, was a judge and the Secretary of State and was generally well-loved unless you appeared before him in court. On the other hand, replacing a feminine name with a masculine one probably won’t work.
Perhaps we could put aside the Place Name Project. Some will disappear of natural attrition. In California, for example, they are arguing about whether the word “India” should be used in textbooks, a distressing development for those of us still searching for Ceylon. So it might be better to begin by tackling a smaller subject.
The ELIMINATION OF EPONYMS. This could work and a start could be made with those found in medicine since they are typically misogynistic. Do we really need, Alzheimer’s, Hodgkin’s, Parkinson’s or Down’s? Is it right that an Italian male exercises hegemony over the nether regions of the female anatomy (Fallopian)? Again, attrition is on your side since the DSM has already purged Asperger’s.
Set up MONIKER MONITORS. I am not sure how this would work.
REFUSE THOSE PRIZES. Don’t accept a Pulitzer or a Pritzker. Follow Dylan’s example of rejecting the Nobel (the dynamite guy).
Statues:
The statue problems could be solved by placing a Statute of Limitations on the Elimination of Statues. All statues. While you probably felt happy to see Saddam toppled and would be glad to see Cornwallis fall, you might not have felt so pleased when you saw all the statuary rubble left behind by ISIS and the Taliban. As well, it might be a good idea to place a moratorium on the construction of any new statues, since the hero of today may be regarded as a schmuck by Friday.
Some Suggestions:
Consider Events and People in Context
Perhaps a start could be made by considering this quotation which comes from The Whig Interpretation of History: “The dispensing of moral judgments upon people or upon actions in retrospect,” wrote Butterfield, is the “most useless and unproductive of all forms of reflection.”
Remember that the Past is Unpredictable
A short example should suffice: Suppose you want to ease the racial tensions at Ryerson by renaming the School of Social Work the “Toussaint Louverture School of Social Work”, thus placating the blacks and pleasing the French. It would be a bad idea, however, since it is now claimed that old Toussaint apparently possessed some slaves of his own.
Get Over It
Are we to be guilty forever? Consider these words from The Tyranny of Guilt:
“Fascism, communism, genocide, slavery, racism, imperialism--the West has no shortage of reasons for guilt. And, indeed, since the Holocaust and the end of World War II, Europeans in particular have been consumed by remorse. But Pascal Bruckner argues that guilt has now gone too far. It has become a pathology, and even an obstacle to fighting today's atrocities. Bruckner, one of France's leading writers and public intellectuals, argues that obsessive guilt has obscured important realities. The West has no monopoly on evil, and has destroyed monsters as well as created them--leading in the abolition of slavery, renouncing colonialism, building peaceful and prosperous communities, and establishing rules and institutions that are models for the world. The West should be proud--and ready to defend itself and its values.
Or Forget About It
Let’s face it the constant the emphasis on remembrance has not led to much in the way of reconciliation. Apparently this book discusses such things and I look forward to reading it in the new year. Have a good one.
“In Praise of Forgetting is about our collective memories: how we remember our national histories and argue about our shared past. Rieff contends that these collective remembrances are self-serving, often fraudulent and frequently dangerous. Sometimes, he thinks, we would be better off simply forgetting the grudge-filled chronicles and getting on with living our lives. He admires the suggestion of a Northern Irish writer that the next memorial to Irish history should be “raising a monument to Amnesia, and forgetting where we put it.”
