Running racism in America thread

Texas athletes request changes by the university. I suspect they'll get these changes, including the song.

 

I don't know about the song and changing the names of all of those buildings -- not knowing the history of most, but the other stuff seems like you can agree to that today.

I also wonder how diverse their Hall of Fame is? Last year's class had 14 honorees and six of them were Black and one was Asian. And three of the other seven were women.

 

The Hall of Fame thing is questionable. 100% of the inductees of the 1960s and before will be white. Can’t change that. Can’t very well take them out simply because of their race. And you can’t make future decisions on the basis of race either.

Most of the items on the list seem reasonable to me.

 

Mayor Marty Walsh of Boston today transferred money to social services out of the police department's overtime budget. Fun fact: Thanks to OT, 530 Boston police officers made more than the Mayor did last year. His salary is $199K.

 

A volleyball group at the beach in belmar had “black al” and “short al” back in the 80s and 90s. I don’t think anybody knew anybody else’s last name. “Black al” was al Harris, a pretty high level pro at the time and a super nice guy.
One of my best juniors club teams had “big mike” and “little mike” the names were self explanatory. Both played in college and had pretty good careers. Little mike is a pretty good coach now.

 

Their last three Hall of Fame classes

2019 -- 14 honorees; six of them were Black and one was Asian. And three of the other seven were women.
2018 -- 16 honorees; four were Black and one Latino; And four of the other 11 were women
2017 -- 15 honorees; six were Black and one Latino; And two of the other eight were women.

That seems pretty diverse without trying.

 

Clemson removes John C. Calhoun's name from Honors College, asks to rename Tillman Hall

 

That's a start. For their next act, they should remove Strom Thurmond's name from the Institute of Government. Saint Dabo of the Upstate won't approve, but he should. One less thing for people to inquire about in recruiting.

 

I don’t like removing names on buildings. You want to rename bases for generals who served the US? Whatever. That’s pretty cut and dry. When you go renaming things for random benefactors/politicians/etc, who gets to set the criteria and be the arbiter of who is ok, we’ll let slide, or bad? There is no rubric for things like that.