ANALYSIS/OPINION:
“You say you want a revolution / Well, you know / We all want to change the world”
— John Lennon
If you really and truly want to change the world, let’s get busy. There’s much to do, which is always the case with revolutions.
After all, no Revolutionary War, no United States of America.
Now that the New New Left has sparked the new beginnings of the culture war over the Confederate flag, get ready to destroy and displace all hurtful symbols.
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Let’s start with the nation’s capital, which must be renamed, right? We can’t continue to call it Washington, District of Columbia. “Washington” refers to George Washington, the Revolutionary War general who helped whip the Brits and became our first president and commander in chief.
How dare we use his name for our capital when Washington was, egads, a slave holder. Nix “Columbia,” too. Christopher Columbus had nothing on indigenous and Native Americans.
Now let’s hit the streets of the capital. The state names — and all 50 have a home in the nation’s capital — can stay, momentarily. But just like our push for statehood, we should continue to give considerable credence to states’ rights until we take on the monumental task of rewriting the U.S. Constitution.
A nod, however, is due the pacificists. So whether your ancestors fought alongside with and supported the men and boys in blue or gray, pay homage by striking names like Lee and Euclid, Jackson and Grant, Totten and Bragg from the maps. We’ll keep Google busy for years. And no more of this Pulaski stuff, the Polish nobleman whose military genius is universally recognized with stamps, parades, statues and memorials. We’ve even named a submarine after him as well as several U.S. towns. Pick a map of towns and roadways east of the Mississippi River and Pulaski’s name pops up. Heck, there was a race riot named after Pulaski. Why? The Tennessee town where it occurred in 1867 was named in Pulaski’s honor.
Also on behalf of anti-war folks, look on the other side of the Potomac River in order to dishonor things named for militarists like Beauregard, Pickett, Eisenhower. Poor Alexandrians. While the capital is kind of blessed that the original Virginia land was taken back, can you imagine what our maps and Metro stations names would be today?
And speaking of the Potomac. We Anglicized its spelling and pronunciation, mostly courtesy of King James’ buds, including John Smith and John Rolfe, the colonist who married Pocahontas after he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Her name and the name of this region’s other major waterway, the Anacostia River, were Anglicized as well. #NativeAmericanlivesmatter.
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Good thing, though, that Virginians like Rolfe were tobacconists, else slaves and indentured servants would have been unemployable with no skills. The nerve.
And what about our schools? You’re aware of the schools honoring notables — whether our forefathers, or people like Phoebe Hearst, Oliver Otis Howard and Robert Brent. The latter was the first mayor of the District, and an elementary school on Capitol Hill and a neighborhood in Northeast, Brentwood, honor that fact. Brent was the son of Ann Carroll, whose brother John was the Jesuit who “never agitated” abolition and founded Georgetown University. Hearst was the mother of William Randolph Hearst, whose grandfather, William G., ran three slave-working farms in Missouri.
Bloodlines run deep (apparently too deep for actor Ben Affleck, whose wanted his slave-owning roots to remain hidden).
And there’s the heritage not of Howard’s namesake but of the heritage of the South itself. Oliver Otis Howard is the militarist for whom Howard University and Howard Hospital are named.
Indeed, Howard’s schools of liberal arts, law and medicine have an impressive list of alumni and accomplishments ever since Congress chartered the historically black university in 1867 during Reconstruction.
But Howard is on the gotta-go list, too. Folks waited too doggone long to push white folks out of leadership at the university and, more important, if it hadn’t been for those Confederate folks in Charleston, South Carolina, there would have been no Civil War — and Howard would be on the do-not-touch list.
Like the beginnings of the Confederacy, the capital can’t ignore its bloodlines: The blood, sweat and tears of slaves built the capital.
Slaves were wronged.
Native Americans were wronged.
The revolution will be televised.
And while we’re at it, let’s not just remove symbols and redraw maps, let’s do a total rewrite of the Constitution.
Reductio ad absurdum.
Hail to the Redskins!
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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