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Geography of Hate: Let the Great Renaming Begin
The statues are coming down, and buildings are being renamed, but those are small potatoes in the war for revolutionary change. Everywhere around us, the names of oppression chain us down in a Geography of Hate. It’s time to take these names of the colonizers, the slaveowners, and the false religions imposed on the indigenous peoples by the colonial invaders. How can we create a society of justice and equality when we live in places whose names reinforce the hierarchies of exploitation and discrimination that have kept people of color in bondage for millennia?
If Kazakhstan does it, then it MUST be a good idea.
Names we should immediately change include (but are not limited to):
U.S. STATES NAMED FOR COLONIZERS, ETC.
District of Columbia – Named for: Christopher Columbus, genocide perpetrator
Georgia – Named for: George II of Great Britain
Indiana – Named for: racist name for indigenous peoples
Louisiana – Named for: Louis XIV of France
Maryland – Named for: Henrietta Maria of France, Queen Consort of Charles I of England
North/South Carolina – Named for: Charles I of England
Pennsylvania – Named for: Sir William Penn, British Royal Navy admiral
Virginia – Named for: Elizabeth I of England
Washington – Named for: George Washington, notorious slaveowner
U.S. CITIES NAMED FOR COLONIZERS
Albany, NY – Named for: James II of England (then Duke of Albany)
Albuquerque, NM – Named for: Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, Duke of Alburquerque, Viceroy of New Spain
Baltimore, MD – Named for: Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore
Charleston, SC – Named for: Charles II of England
Charlotte, NC – Named for: Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen Consort of George III of the United Kingdom
Columbia, SC/Columbus, OH – Named for: Christopher Columbus, genocide perpetrator
Galveston, TX – Named for: Bernardo de Gálvez
Joliet, IL – Named for: Louis Jolliet
Lafayette, LA/Lafayette, IN – Named for: Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
Louisville, KY – Named for: Louis XVI of France
Marquette, MI – Named for: Father Jacques Marquette
New Orleans, LA – Named for: Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Pittsburgh, PA – Named for: William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (Pitt the Elder)
Raleigh, NC – Named for: Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsor of Roanoke colony
U.S. CITIES NAMED FOR EVIL AMERICANS, etc.
Astoria, OR – Named for: John Jacob Astor, robber baron
Austin, TX – Named for: Stephen F. Austin, slavery enthusiast
Bismarck, ND – Named for: Otto von Bismarck, German chancellor
Carson City, NV – Named for: Kit Carson, indigenous oppressor
Fort Worth, TX – Named for: William Jenkins Worth, militant anti-Latinx activist
Houston, TX – Named for: Sam Houston, Confederate supporter
Indianapolis, IN – Named for: racist name for indigenous peoples
Jackson, MS/Jacksonville, FL – Named for: Andrew Jackson, slavery and genocide proponent
Jefferson City, MO – Named for: Thomas Jefferson, sexual abuser of minority women
Lincoln, NE – Named for: Abraham Lincoln, baby-eating Republican
Madison, WI – Named for: James Madison, founding colonizer
Washington, DC – Named for: George Washington, notorious slaveowner
U.S. CITIES NAMED FOR JUDEO-CHRISTIAN FICTIONAL MYTHOLOGY
Corpus Christi, TX (Latin for “body of Christ” – named for a Catholic feast day)
Des Moines, IA (French for “the monks”)
Las Cruces, NM (Spanish for “the crosses”)
Los Angeles, CA (Spanish for “the angels”)
Providence, RI
Sacramento, CA (Spanish for “sacrament”)
Saint Augustine, FL
Saint Louis, MO
Saint Paul, MN
San Angelo, TX
San Antonio, TX
San Bernardino, CA
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
San Jose, CA
San Juan, PR
Santa Ana, CA
Santa Barbara, CA
Santa Clara, CA
Santa Fe, NM
Santa Monica, CA
Santa Rosa, CA
Sault Sainte Marie, MI
Ventura, CA (full name: City of San Buenaventura)
These names of bigotry must go! I know we can all think of far, far better names: Obamapolis, Obamadelphia, Obamaburgh, Barackia, Obamavania… That’s just a start, of course. We must cleanse our landscape of the old names in order to build a new, better society based on social justice – a justice that is just because it brings injustice to those we say deserve it! So let’s start renaming everything! NOW!
Published in General
We could name cities for animals native to their areas. New York could become Tammany Swamp Creature City.
I vote for Big Rat, New York, or Biggest Rats in the World, New York. But then we have to change New York because it was obviously name after some Duke or other oppressor. In fact, Governor Cuomo should have to change his name because its Italian and Italian-Americans like Christopher Columbus. Even if he personally doesn’t like Columbus, it doesn’t matter. Maybe we could just choose a number as a name. That would be less ethnic and personal BUT math is racist so maybe not.
Let’s not even get started on the names of mountains, rivers, canyons, and other natural features . . .
We should rename some of these cities with Names of Hate after the great Progressive fighters who are fighting to make this terrible, most horrible nation somewhat tolerable to live in. We should start by renaming San Francisco to Pelosigrad, Los Angeles to Cuidad Garcetti, and Washington, District of Columbia, to Obamapolis, District of Barackia.
It’s a start…
No, numeracy is a white colonialist thing.
This is outstanding. What great work you did here. Kudos.
Oklahoma means “red people,” so I expect we’ll have to change that.
I just hope we have enough pop culture people of color and Third World communists to rename all these places after.
Oklahoma: Ocasio-Cortez
Colorado: Coloradocasio-Cortez
Washington, D.C.: Washington, A.O.C.
Alexandria, Virginia: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Idaho: Idahocasio-Cortez
Arizona: Arizocasio-Cortez
I just love AOC.
We can’t stop here, sisters and brothers and sister-brothers and brother-sisters and siblings who choose not to let themselves be defined themselves by any gender! Why should we let places keep names that memorialize and commemorate the ancestral homelands of our oppressors? We don’t want to celebrate Old Hampshire, Old Jersey, or Old York, the lands of our captors, so why should we tolerate New Hampshire, New Jersey, or New York? It’s time we replace these names with New Kenya, New Ghana, and New Wakanda!
But yo, uh, New Mexico is okay because of, you know, DACA and diversity and stuff. DREAMERS!
All the cities below must be renamed to something inclusive that expresses our new vision of social justice.
CITIES THAT COMMEMORATE THE WHITE MAN’S HERITAGE
Aberdeen, WA
Athens, GA
Birmingham, AL
Boston, MA
Dover, DE
Dublin, CA
Edinburg, TX
Montpelier, VT
Moscow, ID
Naples, FL
New Bern, NC
New York City, NY
Norfolk, VA
Olympia, WA
Paris, TX
Plymouth, MA
Portland, ME/Portland, OR
Portsmouth, NH
Richmond, VA
St. Petersburg, FL
Venice, CA
Cairo, Illinois; Memphis, Tennessee; and any towns named Alexandria are okay, though, because, you know, Africa…
“Minneapolis” is a remarkable example of Northern Europeans appropriating the language of Indigenous people AND the Greeks. I cannot even.
Raleigh, NC
As Dave Barry used to say, I am not making this up: The city of Columbus, Ohio, just removed the statue of Christopher Columbus from in front of city hall. In Columbus, Ohio.
We live in incredibly stupid times.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/01/christopher-columbus-statue-removed-columbus-city-hall-ohio/5354761002/
Don’t forget to rename the city . . .
Is the town of Gene Autry, Oklahoma okay? Is there a “white, singing cowboy” exemption?
Some non-trivial number of these place names will be changed. It makes me sick to my stomach.
Not to mention the religion-imposing St. Paul.
I like the -grad ending on Pelosigrad. Very Soviet.
Well, actually … if memory serves (and please correct me if I have it wrong) William Penn of Pennsylvania fame was the son of Sir William Penn the Admiral. Penn the younger was a Quaker so probably a pacifist. But I guess you could just go with “sins of the father”.
A lot of New Mexico towns on that list. Hot Springs, New Mexico changed its name in 1950 for a radio show, Truth or Consequences. That seems like a slightly better reason.
If I lived there I would hate that radio show every time I had to try to squeeze “Truth or Consequences” into the City block on an address form.
Ironically, Kit Carson actually spoke a fair number of Native American languages, so he was used by the other explorers and the Army as a translator. He was married three times. One wife was Arapaho, another was Cheyenne, and the third wife was a Mexican woman from a prominent Taos family. So, rename if you must. In his life, Carson changed his attitude toward Native American people from being a scout for Army groups that hunted and killed them, to being their advocate. The thing is…the Native Americans weren’t all just “one group”–they actually spent a lot of time marauding and destroying each other’s tribes.
History isn’t easy, people. There are many versions, and many points of view. (I taught Nevada state history to 4th graders for many years. That’s why I’m so familiar with Kit Carson.)
At least Grants is safe. Named after some Canadian brothers and not the newly troublesome President.
The only way to be safe is to adopt the creative habits of the urban poor by inventing all new names.
Jamalahalaquan
New Qwerty
The City Formerly Known as P
San Antonio’s infamous Woman Hollering Creek could be changed to something less presumptuous, like Honorable Unspecified Thingamawhosit Lecturing Creek.
It is time to do away with names, altogether. Names considered laudable or even acceptable today may have offensive aspects that can devastate certain demographics tomorrow. We don’t need names anymore. Zip codes have shown the way. Today we can refer to locations by their gps coordinates. The young folk will have no problem, us fogie-types will just have to adjust.
The younger Penn named the colony in honor of his father.
An overwhelmingly large amount of cities here are from California, especially in the “religious” category. I wonder, much longer can a city that revels in its godlessness tolerate being named for St. Francis of Assisi?
Multiple wives of native origin? Carson sounds like a serial abuser of indigenous women, trying to impose white hegemony through sexual violence and the slavery system renamed as “marriage.”
Clearly that’s as much the white man’s lies as that propaganda about how Africans were actually sold to slaves traders by other Africans who held them in bondage. Only the white man has ever enslaved or waged war!
Has the Dispatch written their A Conservative Case For Renaming Columbus, Ohio article yet?
Renaming cities is nothing new. Remember Leningrad?
I think that would be, Person Who Menstruates Hollering Creek. (This new-noun paradigm puts a whole new spin on it.)