Here are some of my thoughts on the subject and process.

It’s Hard to Judge People from the Past Using Today’s Standards

Nobody is perfect especially when you judge people from a different time period using today’s standards. People’s beliefs and actions are shaped by the time they’re living in and by those that surround them. It can be very hard for someone to rise above those norms even if they desired to do so.

For example, if you were born into a white family in the South before the Civil War and owned a plantation, you almost certainly owned slaves (there were even a few cases of free Blacks and even Asian plantation owners that owned slaves). When you grew up, you could have done the heroic act of setting your slaves free and advocated for the abolishment of slavery, but that would not have been the norm for where you were living and could even get you abused by your neighbors or even thrown in jail. At the very least, doing the right thing (by our standards) would have meant financial ruin and probably a change in occupation.

Yes, owning slaves is completely wrong. It’s hard to excuse people like Thomas Jefferson that knew better. Washington eventually freed his slaves, but that was only after he died and he didn’t have to suffer the consequences.

However, they were products of their time and place just as we are. Are there things that we current do, that people in the future may find unacceptable?

People Can Change

Philip Chin (one of our editors) once did a conference session on the changing views of Mark Twain. As a young man Twain once held very racist views, but evolved over time until by the end of his life he was a campaigner for equal rights and anti-colonialism. Twain was also a product of his time, but gradually learned to drop those views. If you weren’t familiar with the whole biography of Twain and just found some of his racist snippets you may come away thinking poorly of him.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the first woman mayor of San Francisco (over 42 years ago) and the first California woman to become a United States Senator, currently has a school named after her. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “The task force said that Dianne Feinstein’s name should be removed from her namesake school because, as mayor, she replaced a vandalized Confederate flag that was part of a long-standing flag display in front of City Hall. When the flag was pulled down a second time, she did not replace it.”

As mayor, Feinstein was also marked down by the committee for her nonsupport of same sex marriages and partnerships, which was the stance of nearly all prominent politicians until quite recently.

Yes, this was wrong and I’m sure if you asked her, she’d probably agree too. She was a product of her time, but I believe she’s evolved away from those views, just as polls have shown that a majority of Americans have too.

United State Presidents – Their History Can be a Very Mixed Bag

Rightly or wrongly, presidents often get credited with everything that happens during their time in office. How much control they really have over good and atrocious acts during their time in office can sometimes be hard to pin down.

Lincoln’s administration’s mistreatment of Native Americans can fill a book (have a read of a snippet of “Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Policy and Politics”).

I did not read this book, but from what I have read from the snippet and from other research, Lincoln was probably no worse than most US presidents from his time.

The terms that could best describe America’s policies and actions against Native Americans until the 20th Century are “cultural destruction,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “genocide.” With this in mind, few non-Native Americans from that time, even those that did little except live in the stolen lands, could rightfully be exonerated.

If presidents are to be credited with everything that happens during their administration, then no president should ever have a school named after them.

The Committee’s Evaluation System and the Whole Process Seems Flawed

I didn’t really delve deeply into the committee’s adjudication process, but what little I’ve seen and read seems flawed.

Their system was essentially a straight pass fail. If a school name had something that met their criteria as being connected with something wrong, then it was immediately marked for being renamed.

There seemed to be no process for appeal or even weighing the positives versus the negatives of each name. As far as I can tell, there was also no public debate or discussion with parents, students, educators, and the communities that would be affected by the decision.

The committee’s spreadsheet did have a few notes for people like Washington that seemed to indicated that they gave some thought of the positives, but for the most part, there is little evidence that they gave all the names their full consideration.

The committee’s research also seemed a little lacking for the gravity of the work that they were undertaking. Some of their sources seemed suspect and slanted, reflecting certain biases. In addition journalists doing their own research have been able to easily poke holes in some of the committee’s findings and non-findings. I hate to characterize their work as amateurish, but I think they could have done better. They should have really done a much better job on researching in preparations for the criticism that they should have expected from working on such a controversial task.

The San Francisco School Board has accepted the committee’s recommendations and is going ahead with the renaming of 44 schools. They are leaving the renaming of the schools up to the students, families, and educators of those schools. Should this be left in their hands? I can imagine some time from now when another committee is tasked with having to evaluate the names that are created today.

Why We Honor and What to Do With Our Fallen Heroes

People are honored for certain things that they do and not necessarily for their whole life.

Confederate hero statues and names are being removed because they honor the very thing we find offensive, the institution and defense of slavery and white supremacy in America.

Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts all were responsible for many positive things in our country. They are being honored for those reasons. That doesn’t mean that we ignore their flaws, mistakes, and evil deeds, it means we recognize them as flawed human beings that students can hopefully learn from.

We tend to place too much hero worship in those we honor and want to treat them as flawless gods, not as normal human beings who did some honorable acts. Shouldn’t we instead teach about how they were people shaped by their times and had faults, and yet overcame many of the problems of their times, much as we’d like our students to do?

Yes, we can still be proud of our forbearers that helped built the TCRR and this country. But we should also realize that as full participants in the American experience, their work also had a negative impact on Native Americans and others. Many positives can be found to have negative consequences.

Like it not, all non-indigenous people and their descendants are constant reminders to Native Americans that we are in their lands and have benefitted from their loss. Renaming some school isn’t going to change that. The real question is what are we going to do that has some real impact. Teaching about it instead of obliterating the past might be a good start.

By renaming the schools are we missing out on future opportunities to educate people about the human beings and history behind the names, and the full good and bad of the American experience?