The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: PegLeg45 on June 26, 2009, 11:39:51 AM
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RI closer to changing state name over slavery
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090626/ap_on_re_us/us_providence_plantations
By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 25, 9:53 pm ET
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The country's smallest state has the longest official name: "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations."
A push to drop "Providence Plantations" from that name advanced farther than ever on Thursday when House lawmakers voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the "State of Rhode Island." It's an encouraging sign for those who believe the formal name conjures up images of slavery, while opponents argue it's an unnecessary rewriting of history that ignores Rhode Island's tradition of religious liberty and tolerance.
The bill permitting a statewide referendum on the issue next year now heads to the state Senate.
"It's high time for us to recognize that slavery happened on plantations in Rhode Island and decide that we don't want that chapter of our history to be a proud part of our name," said Rep. Joseph Almeida, an African-American lawmaker who sponsored the bill.
Rhode Island's unwieldy name reflects its turbulent colonial history, a state that consisted of multiple and sometimes rival settlements populated by dissidents.
Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his unorthodox religious views, minister Roger Williams set out in 1636 and settled at the northern tip of Narragansett Bay, which he called Providence Plantations. Williams founded the first Baptist church in America and became famous for embracing the separation of church and state, a legal principle enshrined in the Bill of Rights a century later.
Other settlers made their homes in modern-day Portsmouth and Newport on Aquidneck Island, then known as the Isle of Rhodes.
In 1663, English King Charles II granted a royal charter joining all the settlements into a single colony called "The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." The name stuck. Rhode Island used that royal charter as its governing document until 1843.
Opponents of the name charge argue that "plantations" was used at the time to describe any farming settlements, regardless of slavery.
Rhode Island merchants did, however, make their fortunes off the slave trade. Slaves helped construct Brown University in Providence, and a prominent slave trader paid half the cost of its first library.
Still, Stanley Lemons, a professor emeritus of history at Rhode Island College, said changing the state's name ignores the accomplishments of Williams, whose government passed laws trying to prevent the permanent servitude of whites, blacks and American Indians.
"There are different meanings for this word," Lemons said. "To try to impose their experience on everyone else wipes out Roger Williams."
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Sarcasm alert:
We must do whatever we can to erase any part of history that we just don't like or could offend someone.
After all, isn't it in the Bill of Rights: The right to never be offended, in order to ensure a more ............
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It's silly in ideology, but at least they want to put it to a vote of the people. Unlike here in Georgia when they changed the state flag. The actual changing of the flag itself isn't what pissed me off, but the fact that the legislature caved to minority pressure and changed it without putting it to a referendum vote and allowing the people to have a say in the matter.
Ultimately, it cost the Governor his job at the next election (side note, he's thinking of running again this next election).
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PC idiocy! The only real excuse to change it would be if you had to fit the whole thing on a license plate. ;D
Still it shows "good" political sense. To get reelected, you need name recognition. That means press. Three ways to do that: One preach family values and hardline immigration policies, and then have an Argentinian mistress. (On second thought, that ones out. ::)) Two actually champion a REAL issue that efects the people, but would involve higher taxes or cuts in services (sorry forget I said that). Three, find some symbolic nonsense like gay marriage, the confederate flag, the ten commandments in the courthouse, slavery, etc. that will wind up your base, cost nothing and get you in the news. Sad that we're even talking about this idiocy. Don't the Providence Plantations have roads and schools that need fixing? ::)
FQ13
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Hell, at the rate things are going regarding the constant erasure of American History, in a few years they'll just change the names of all the states to numbers 1-50.
That way, when traveling out of state, at the checkpoints all you need on your papers is a number.
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Hell, at the rate things are going regarding the constant erasure of American History, in a few years they'll just change the names of all the states to numbers 1-50.
That way, when traveling out of state, at the checkpoints all you need on your papers is a number.
Scary thought, but I doubt it's all that far off.
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Four letters cover it: PC BS
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Show of hands....how many actually KNEW the official state name of RI before Pegleg posted this thread?
I did but I live up here...
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Show of hands....how many actually KNEW the official state name of RI before Pegleg posted this thread?
I did but I live up here...
Didn't have a clue. I just thought that it was Rhode Island. I figured that it was too small for more than that ;D
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Show of hands....how many actually KNEW the official state name of RI before Pegleg posted this thread?
I did but I live up here...
I did, but only because I get (got) paid to know that stuff. You point is well taken, but it is still an example of the sort of divisive symbolic politics (over irrelevant issues) that should be condemned whether it comes from the left or right.
FQ13
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1984 - those who control the present, controls the past.
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1984 - those who control the present, controls the past.
Yep.
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1984 - those who control the present, controls the past.
Actually, the scary thing is that the reverse is true as well. Control the view of the past, and you can rubber stamp anything, from happy slaves, to America as genocidal racist state, no better than the third reich. This stuff is silly, bu not so silly in its downrange effects.
FQ13 Who prays fervently that someday folks will realize that history is not a morality play.