You also have to overlook white area residents in the 1920’s who didn’t welcome the KKK. And the judge in 1913 who was infuriated that the jury didn’t convict any of the 4 men who lynched Mr. Zachariah Walker.
The KKK is big in parts of PA. Checkout Ulysses, PA in Potter County. That is terrifying.
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Casting aspersions on the intent behind the name chosen by the LO and that was related in every program since at least 2009 wasn’t wise. If people truly believed that he was discouraging Black competitors then boycotting the event entirely and criticizing participants may have been more effective than threatening a (another) media firestorm. Insisting that the name be changed, or else! led to the land owner shrugging his shoulders and effectively saying, “I don’t need any additional hassles on top of the ones I already had by virtue of hosting these events. I don’t need ANY of you on my land.”
Chester County has plenty to confront. So does the nation. May the residents who are most affected by covert and overt racism run for offices and succeed in overturning policies and stopping practices that harm and are downright deadly to many.
Trees were planted by Boy Scouts on land owned by the family. Now the Boy Scouts in the 1930’s weren’t inclusive at all. But is the planting of trees at that time, in that area, indicative or suggestive of sinister intent? What about the scout who came up with the project?
Again, please avoid bringing in unrelated personal commentary about individuals involved and placing deleterious labels on others both in the conversation here and involved in the issue in real life. Examination of the broader issues this situation involves are likely a better fit for the CE forum, so a move there may be forthcoming.
I have no issue with your 1% or 100% insistence that the word (in this instance) has racist intent.
The issue is that you believe that your feelings about a highly debatable topic should compel others to conform to your whims, under threats of social censure and violence.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes’s stated, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”
It’s perfectly acceptable, laudable, and quintessentially American to believe things strongly, and to express those beliefs.
It is not any of those things to attempt to terrorize others into agreeing you with what are very real threats of violence.
also these endless purity tests will most certainly result in the whole world burning.
And on the bend of the mod’s repeated statements, ad hominem attacks are logical fallacies, and do not help any kind of argument.
Alright. It doesn’t materially change the point I was making. I will amend my statement as follows:
Plantation Field does celebrate a plantation – in this case, a pine plantation that was installed as a service project. That is not the kind of plantation that springs to mind for many people, but it was named in celebration of a plantation. If I were the owner, I would be concerned that people might think I was celebrating the other kind of plantation (and would consider a name change as a result), but of course I’m not the owner. What is not up for debate, however, is that Plantation Field was so named to celebrate a plantation.
@ladyj79, I’m not trying to be argumentative with my post, because I don’t think that’s helping anyone – I’m genuinely trying to lay out facts that everyone can agree upon. I have edited my previous post accordingly. Do we not agree that Plantation Field was so named to celebrate a pine plantation service project?
I don’t. I view it as evidence of their assumption that the owners were good people, who are not racist, and that this was something that simply needed to be brought to their attention in order to be addressed.
If they thought the owners were intentionally making some people feel unwelcome in our sport, I would hope they would choose to act as though the event did not exist at all. Since I believe they thought the owners were simply unaware of how the name sounded to those from other parts of the country, it seems EN thought it was a simple matter of adjusting how the event was represented on their site, and hoping the event itself would follow suit. Of course, that’s not how it went, but that’s a different story.
I agree with you, and have said so many times. In literally the next paragraph, my post went on to outline that Plantation Field celebrates a plantation. Which is true. It celebrates a pine plantation service project.
Whether or not people from other parts of the country understand the nuance of celebrating a pine plantation service project vs. celebrating a different kind of plantation is beyond the control of the event organizers, who choose to publically advertise this event nationally as “Plantation Field”. If I were an owner, I would be concerned that nuance might be lost, and I would change the name to avoid misunderstanding. This owner chose to do something different. Which is his right.
It is. A thing that can be missed, and almost certainly will be missed by some if you reach enough people. Whether or not you care to avoid that is your prerogative.
There is not one single poster that has lived through 85 (!!!) pages of this discussion that doesn’t know the event was named after a pine plantation, or what a pine plantation is. It’s worth noting that Eventing Nation themselves pointed that out very clearly in the original article. But no matter how many times you repeat what it was actually named for, or print the history of the name in the program at the event, it does not erase the possibility that someone in Florida will hear that their eventer friend is going to compete at “Plantation” and raise an eyebrow at the choice of name for the venue.
I don’t know how to say it more clearly: no one involved with the event has to care about this potential for misunderstanding, and they’ve made it clear at this point that they don’t. Which is their right. But the potential does exist, and could make people feel unwelcome, and I will never personally understand why you would choose not to care about that when you could choose otherwise.
because the name they did select honours something that was important to their family.
So why should they care less about something that was important to their family than something some hypothetical stranger thinks about the name of their show?
No offense, but arguably horse sport and its privileged participants are not the most important things in most people’s lives.
Also Because we don’t eradicate names or language because some people might “feel unwelcome.”
Joseph Stalin killed a lot of his own people. He was a murderous thug.
Should Joe Biden change his name, because the name Joe might make some people recall Stalin?
No, I am sorry, I am just really clumsy this morning about what I am trying to say.
So I will try again.
There was a decision made in the 30’s to change the name of this place. Because of abolitionist activity in the 1850’s in the view of some, the name is strictly tied to a certain definition of that word. And you are 100% sure of that.
I don’t know what whims I am trying to get you to conform to? I am just saying I have doubts about the original name change. And they are slim doubts, but I am not at 100% assurance that every single soul in Chester County in the 30’s was completely unbigoted.
I don’t insist that you believe that, I am saying your beliefs are perfectly reasonable, I just have a little gray area there.
I don’t know what the violence or social censure you are referring to means? You maybe have me confused with someone else?
What about the word niggardly? It is a fabulous old word with innocent roots in Middle English. You don’t see it often, but when you do it’s in a paragraph rich with other lovely words. But the sound of it, well, it could make others feel unwelcome. What other 15th century words should be tossed in the dust bin?
I found a dozen or more towns in the US whose name starts with Coon. They better change those names stat, because coon is legitimately 7 million times nastier than Plantation.
Conversations about the word niggardly have been happening for at least two decades.
The attempted destruction of language is not new. Which is why it is a central feature of the authoritarian government of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four
the ability to paint those who use language you don’t like or who merely reject the destruction of language as thought criminals is an added bonus.
I still say that LW & EN were the worst parties to force a name change on a venue. Particularly since EN was willing to risk losing it entirely and knew exactly how to make that happen. Threatening wider media coverage. If they are journalists, they knew that Mr. Walker had been through it before.
"As they proceeded, Wylie and EN owner John Thier knew the loss of the event might be the outcome. In an email shared with the Chronicle, dated Aug. 28, Olympic rider and PFEE board member Boyd Martin wrote, “The worst case outcome for us in the Eventing world is that if the landowner gets so offended with this issue that he decides to kick the event off his land and we lose the venue for the sport we love and need.” Thier responded, “There are many worse outcomes for Eventing in the US than losing the PFI venue, such as the sport not standing up for what is right.”
“PFEE board members also said EN invoked the threat of mainstream media coverage if the event did not change its name.”
So, who do you trust more to present what happened? PFEE board members who didn’t want to see its loss, or EN who didn’t even acknowledge that the loss was significant? Honestly, Thier retorted defensively (imo) rather than responded.
Walker played for keeps. He didn’t want anything to do with mainstream media and he shut it down. Thier and Wylie can regard it as a win. Walker may too as he regains exclusive control over the land. No eventers and their never-ending list of changes and upgrades in infrastructure that he then has to create and maintain.
Not that it matters. As I wrote earlier, I regard all of this as more akin to impact statements than anything else.
I don’t disagree with any of this (and I don’t take offense). Everything you have listed above comes down to personal preference. They are not required to care about this. This doesn’t need to be important to them. I have acknowledged this plenty of times, and will continue to do so.
I do make an effort to avoid naming things or using language that people have said is not welcoming to those who have already dealt with far more than they ever should have had to. But that’s a personal preference of mine, and not everyone will have the same preference - nor are they required to. How people feel matters more to me than the technically correct use of language, but again, that’s a personal preference.
"Gay activists and black leaders have raised concerns that Williams, who took office earlier this month, should not have accepted Howard’s resignation. The activists sent a letter to the mayor that praised Howard for being among the few openly gay officials in the city’s administration and condemned Williams for participating in the “railroading of a decent man.”
Even Julian Bond, chairman of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and a Washington resident, joined in the protest by using the word to describe Williams’ position on the brouhaha. “Seems to me the mayor has been niggardly in this judgment on this issue,” said Bond, who is African American and a professor of history at the University of Virginia and American University. “You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people’s lack of understanding.”
We used to care about alleviating ignorance. Now we dont even pretend; we rely on ignorance, and manipulate it.
I played lady bracknell in the importance of being Earnest a lifetime ago, Oscar Wilde, who uses her as a stand in to critique ignorance, particularly among the elite
“I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever."
Wow! An event organizer now has to pass a cultural purity test now to be allowed to organize a competition!
Last I recall, we still had a First Amendment right to free speech and free association. Keep up attitude and it make sure that eventers lose all access to private lands.
Oh, and lest you missed civics class that day, there are 2 landmark Supreme Court Cases that tested the limits of the First Amendment.
These cases held that the First Amendment protects individuals’ rights to express their views, even if those views are considered extremely offensive by most people.
The 2 cases are, National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1977), and [I]Brandenburg v. Ohio /I, the Supreme Court
The 1978 Skokie case involved neo-Nazis who applied for a permit to march in the heavily Jewish community of Skokie, Illinois.
In the Brandenburg v. Ohio case Ku Klux Klan member Clarence Brandenburg. Brandenburg delivered a speech where he called for “revengeance” [sic] against Jews and African Americans. He was convicted under two Ohio laws, sentenced to prison and fined $1,000. Brandenburg appealed and argued that the Ohio law violated the First Amendment. His case eventually went to the Supreme Court. The Court unanimously agreed with Brandenburg and struck down the Ohio law as unconstitutional.
