Walter Williams‘ latest column at Human Events offers food for thought for college campus radicals looking for the next building, program, or sports team to rename.
This renaming craze is widespread and includes dozens of colleges and universities, including Amherst, Georgetown, Princeton, Yale and the University of California, Berkeley. The students have decided that some politically incorrect people from centuries ago are bad. Other politically incorrect people are not quite so bad if they were at least sometimes liberal; their names can stay.
San Diego State University students are not demanding that the school eliminate its nickname, “Aztecs,” even though the Aztecs enslaved and slaughtered tens of thousands of people from tribes they conquered — often ripping out the hearts of living victims. Should UC Berkeley students and faculty demand the renaming of Warren Hall, named after California Attorney General Earl Warren, who instigated the wartime internment of tens of thousands of innocent Japanese-American citizens? UC Berkeley students and faculty might consider renaming their Cesar E. Chavez Student Center. Chavez sent his thug lieutenants down to California’s southern border to use violence to prevent job-seeking Mexican immigrants from entering the United States. President Woodrow Wilson was a racist who, among other racist acts, segregated civil service jobs. Should Princeton University rename its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs plus rename its Woodrow Wilson fellowship program?
Most universities have a women’s studies program. Part of their agenda is to make sure men learn that “no” means “no” and condemn any form of sexual assault. Should campus feminists make clear that former President Bill Clinton, a womanizer and exploiter of women, is unwelcome on any campus? Should they also protest any appearance by his enabler, Hillary Clinton, who helped demonize her husband’s female accusers by cracking down on “bimbo eruptions”?
Recently, Brown University changed its Columbus Day celebration to Indigenous People’s Day. By the way, many cities are following suit. There may be a problem. According to publications such as Lawrence H. Keeley’s “War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage” and Steven A. LeBlanc and Katherine E. Register’s “Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage,” we may have to rethink just how noble and peaceful American Indians were prior to Christopher Columbus. American Indians waged brutal tribal wars long before Europeans showed up. The evidence is especially strong in the American Southwest, where archaeologists have found numerous skeletons with projectile points embedded in them and other marks of violence. Comanche Indians were responsible for some of the most brutal slaughters in the history of Western America.
