It should come as no surprise that
a group of professors and researchers recently identified 960 places
within 16 of America’s 62 national parks that contain “racist” names that
promote “white supremacy,” “racism,” “settler colonialism” or “anti-Indigenous
ideologies,” according to an article in the online journal People and Nature.
The article states that the research team “examined
the origins of over 2,200 place names in 16 national parks in the United
States” and found all of the locations “have place names that tacitly
endorse racist or, more specifically, anti-Indigenous ideologies.”
The team helpfully split the offensive place names
into categories, including those that allegedly support white supremacy, those
that were the work of white urban power elites, those that appropriate
indigenous language, those that replace an indigenous place name with a
colonizer name, and, of course, those heinously offensive “neutral-seeming”
names, such as “Crater Peak.”
Of the 960 “offensive” names, 254 supposedly
supported white supremacy, while 214 were accused of appropriating indigenous
language. On the other hand, researchers claimed that 205 of the names were
offensive because they replaced an Indigenous place name with a
colonizer name. So, if a place was named using an indigenous term it is was
considered offensive appropriation, and if an indigenous term was replaced by a
non-indigenous term it was offensive substitution? Talk about damned if you do
and damned if you don’t!
Incredibly, the researchers determined that 324
place names were offensive due to their “neutral-seeming” names. Huh? The study
stated: “Seemingly innocuous names, and names of forgotten or obscure
individuals are perhaps just as pernicious as names for outright racist or
violent individuals. Neutral-seeming settler names build a white-normative
culture in the place.” The article noted that these names “perpetuate the
invisibility of Indigenous people on landscapes” and also “demonstrate that
settlers have the power to suppress deep Indigenous knowledge with relatively
shallow Eurocentric names.” Indigenous people are “deep” whereas the newer (Eurocentric)
migrants are “relatively shallow?” That’s funny, as it’s just the opposite of
what progressives/academics think today, which is that most long-time American
citizens, particularly in flyover country, are ignorant cultureless rubes while
immigrants, legal and illegal, enrich us beyond measure.
“Roy’s Peak,” in Texas’ Big Bend National park, was deemed
to support white supremacy, and was cited as an example of names that somehow “erase
Indigenous knowledge.”
The obviously offensive “Yellowstone
National Park” was determined to be “the work of white urban power elites,”
including Teddy Roosevelt. This is ironic, as the former progressive president is
widely considered to be the original champion of the National Park Service.
Moreover, he greatly expanded the national parks and loved nothing more than to
be out in the wilds.
The researchers noted that “white hegemonic symbols
embedded in parks can contribute to a perception that white people are the
primary stewards and knowledge keepers of nature” and, as a result, can make
racial minorities feel uncomfortable and excluded. They added, “Black people
are 13% of the US population yet they are only 1% of US national park visitors,
while white people are 76% of the US population and 96% of visitors.” And racism
and white supremacy are the only possible reasons for that, right?
The silly study concludes that, if the
aforementioned places were renamed, supposedly marginalized groups would
magically become empowered, and would flock to the national parks in droves.
Sounds logical. So let’s rename “Yellowstone Park.” Let’s
rename “Crater Peak.” And let’s rename “Roy’s Peak.” (Surely “LeRoy’s
Peak” would be a better draw for Black folks.) In fact, let’s rename every
place in the United States.
And then rename the nation, as well, since we are “united”
no longer.
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