Rally Blasts Columbus School Name Change

Sorry, but "Indigenous peoples" have just as much baggage as the rest of us and all the other "peoples". No names affiliated with groups or individuals.

No more names of people, because nobody is perfect, and then somebody always feels hurt or left out. Name buildings and public spaces for ideals, themes, places, or numbers or ideas.

Not even a week after Racism was declared a public health crisis right here in Connecticut here it is the community is denied it's narrative, blatantly. Fresh off the heels of the "N" word casually "slipping off the tongue" (as described by the NHPS superintendent) a name is chosen, not by the community or those representing the community but by a group of individuals whose main goal was to keep privilege happy and once again give the oppressed crumbs. Where was the indigenous representation on the committee assigning the name? Why chose a name which still resignates the birth of slavery, racism, imperialism? When will the day come when things will no longer be done the white way and there is true reparations including equity, respect, inclusivity? This pushback to the voice of the community is exactly why Racism had to be declared and shows how this state was RED for so long - there are still streets, highways, businesses, monuments represented the person who discovered slavery. The demand from the community is simple, recognizing the school is feet away from the Quinnipiac river, acknowledging the untold history which MUST be part of the curricula, have the decency to at least recognize the true history and respect the community, name the school after the indigenous hero who was murdered and whose head was put up as a monument for privilege to admire down at the New Haven Green - Napaupuck.

Columbus, the mass murderer, has had endless institutions, cities, and holidays named after him in America. He colonized the land that he stole, while brutalizing, raping and murdering the indigenous people who OWNED the land. For how many years was this school named after a colonizing murderer? So now that the descendants of indigenous people would like their ancestors and culture to be honored, all of a sudden y'all are worried about inclusion, and not wanting to leave anyone out, so let's make it a generalized name that honors nothing? Why was it okay to honor this murderer for how many years, but now that we aren't honoring the white guy, then no one should be honored. The memory of all the culture and people murdered by the white man, don't have the opportunity to be honored? IT IS THEIR LAND, THAT WAS STOLEN. Everything in this country is so damn whitewashed, that people can't stand the idea of having institutions named after indigenous people/culture. It's just an "okay, Columbus' turn is over, but don't you dare think about giving any other cultures a chance to be honored, were just gonna start saying all of a sudden that we need to be inclusive so no one is left out..." Just another tactic to coddle white people's feelings again, now that they aren't getting their way. Always gotta make sure the whites are being nurtured! Ridiculous.

It's interesting that the board of education opted to swap out one genocidal colonizer for another in terms of name inspiration. why go to the trouble of renaming if it's going to uphold the image of white washed history, using the tax dollars of city residents to change the name to another european who came to disrupt the lives of the indigenous people who are the true settlers of this region. a quinnipiac representative would be a much preferable choice over any european national who came to this area to rape and murder in the name of the colonist agenda, for example Napaupuck, one of the many victims of the white supremacist colonizing nations who moved onto native people's land and weaponized their religion and justice system as a way to subjugate the inhabitants, justifying the seizure of land and resources and the use of indigenous and non western european peoples' bodies as chattel, while also justifying the death and imprisonment of individuals non compliant with the colonist agenda. perhaps the choice of name and ultimate the vote and decision over said name choice should be made by the inhabitants whose children attend this school and whose taxes pay for the school, not a board of appointed officials representing city interests

As someone who studied not only the Native Americans but the Native Americans of Connecticut and their laws - and yes, that is what my transcript says, although I am sure someone will call me out here for not using the politically correct term "indigenous" - this debate and the comments seems shortsighted. The indigenous people of America were hardly "progressive" people - many of their traditions were abhorrent, but this can be said of virtually all cultures. Yet they were progressive in one sense: they did not believe in the concept of private property. In fact, many cultures do not believe in this, because private property is usually a tool of oppression and evil in itself. I had to really struggle to pay attention in Property Law class, because I knew I was dealing with essentially legal fictions: "property lines" "easements" "rights to posses" etc. As a matter of fact, I couldn't care less who, at the end of a 2 page Property Exam, owns Black Acre. So, to shout "they were here first, it was their land and it was stolen!" misses the point.

Are we then to honor them simply because they owned land, or happened to be "here first" ? I don't think that's worth honoring - property ownership. So then we say, well, we don't want to honor colonialism, and want to acknowledge what colonialism resulted in. We know it resulted in a CULTURAL ELMINATION AND REPLACEMENT PROGRAM. Thus, the converse of that would be CULTURAL AFFIRMATION AND CELEBRTAION, and Fame, although cheesy, fits that bill. Do the commentators then want us to go one step further and specifically identify one particular culture, and then chose that culture simply because that culture was a landed one that was here first, except that is historically inaccurate because they didn't "own" the land?

As I look around the state, I see many indigenous names: Unquowa, the Quinnipiac, the Pequots and last I checked, don't we live in the state of Connecticut? Isn't our very state name indigenous?

@ShadowBoxer, respectfully you are missing the point. it's not about the property ownership, it's about why is it so vitally important to the state to recognizing and clinging to the deification of historical figures that played active roles in erasing indigenous cultures? not just here in ct but elsewhere as well. and so what if some names in ct have indigenous origins, it's not about "well we allowed a certain number of names to remain indigenous so it's okay to white wash the others". why are they being white washed in the first place

All the Woke and non-Woke individuals commenting on this thread have one thing in common, they are all living on land that was stolen from indigenous people. If you're truly progressive, the only thing to do is to give the stolen land back to the indigenous people that lived on it. Sure, there is pain involved in doing this, but if you're truly Woke it's the right thing to do. If you're not Woke, Wow, it's going to hurt more because you don't know why you're giving it back. As for myself, I'll ask my landlord to give this land and house back. ...She says NO!! That's not a good beginning.