🙈🙈🙈
[video=youtube_share;DOzYT4lcXuM]https://youtu.be/DOzYT4lcXuM[/video]
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:lol::lol::lol:
love.
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See! There is something we agree on!
Thank you for that, it was much needed.
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Some people are actually able to empathize with and care about people outside their own family.
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Again, this implication is neither empathetic nor helpful.
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Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize that being empathetic and helpful were requirements for posting on this thread.
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:lol: rest assured, I’m not telling you not to post, nor am I telling you what to say or not say. I’m merely commenting on your post. Because it is a discussion board.
That this particular thread happens to be the result of an unhelpful blog and its author is just an added bonus.
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The requirement on this thread is that you’re only supposed to be empathetic to the land owner and not to anyone else.
I know, they didn’t tell me either so I was confused as well.
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“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.”
Except - and this is important to note - when it has been stated through the years that the name was selected to honor the memories of Mr. Walker’s family members who had been so generous for decades - to impugn them in ANY WAY AT ALL is not going to go over well.
One of my parents is an idiot. I can say that. My siblings can say that. But if YOU say it, that will not fly. Same principle was in play here and yet, not a single person who were raising the issue kept that in mind.
And here we are at the wake.
EN and its editorial staff may still be parting themselves on the back for their role in shuttering Plantation Field for a noble cause, but they had nothing invested in it. It was a “paper loss” for them, not a real or even visceral loss.
ETA: I thought this might explain it better than I can.
One of the most obnoxious traits of contemporary society is to assume the worst intentions in people. If everyone around you is perceived to have bad intentions, it’s not a stretch to say they might assume the worst of intentions in you as well. Of course intentions and outcomes are two separate entities, and one person’s positive or at least innocuous intentions can definitely lead to negative consequences.
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“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.”
Except - and this is important to note - when it has been stated through the years that the name was selected to honor the memories of Mr. Walker’s family members who had been so generous for decades - to impugn them in ANY WAY AT ALL is not going to go over well.
One of my parents is an idiot. I can say that. My siblings can say that. But if YOU say it, that will not fly. Same principle was in play here and yet, not a single person who raised the issue kept that in mind.
And here we are at the wake.
EN and its editorial staff may still be patting themselves on the back for their role in shuttering Plantation Field for a noble cause, but they had nothing invested in it. It was a “paper loss” for them, not a real or even visceral loss.
This might explain it better than I can.
One of the most obnoxious traits of contemporary society is to assume the worst intentions in people. If everyone around you is perceived to have bad intentions, it’s not a stretch to say they might assume the worst of intentions in you as well. Of course intentions and outcomes are two separate entities, and one person’s positive or at least innocuous intentions can definitely lead to negative consequences.
”‹”‹
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Careful there, glass house.
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Of course they should not impugn his family. And they did not. They went to him and said “hey, we know that you named this after a pine plantation, but not everyone realizes that when they hear the name and it’s possible that it could create a hurtful misunderstanding.” In their own editorial, they were very careful to explain the history of the property, the history of the name, and to make explicitly clear that there was no hurtful intent behind the name (if they had not done any of that, THAT would be impugning his family).
I totally agree with this. Which is why I find some of this thread confusing. No one assumed the worst intentions in Mr. Walker. In fact, you might say EN made too positive an assumption about him - they assumed this was just something that hadn’t been noticed, and if they brought the potential for misunderstanding to his attention, he might want to make a change to avoid that misunderstanding. I’m not sure it ever occurred to them (before they went down this road - it appears they realized at some point along the road, per John Thier in COTH) that he would respond by taking his toys and going home. Of course it was always something he had the right to do, but it’s not exactly the response most people would expect to “hey, did you know that people in other parts of the country hear this name a bit differently than you mean it?”
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Again, there is zero reflection on the reality that someone might absolutely understand your argument, and still disagree with you.
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I think the essence of your argument is, “Even though we acknowledge the property was named ‘plantation’ for totally innocuous (and indeed honorable) reasons, there is the potential for some people to misunderstand it and have hurt feelings; therefore, you should do the nice thing and change it.”
Aside from the non-trivial expense of such a change, this argument begs the question of why the possible misunderstanding and/or hurt feelings of a bunch of strangers should count more than the feelings of the property owner and his family. You’re saying that these hypothetical strangers do not have a modicum of responsibility to learn about the area and the origins of the name; but meanwhile upon demand the landowner should spend tens of thousands of dollars and run around changing everything.
Speaking of privilege-- this argument would seem to say the feelings of the strangers should be privileged over the feelings (and financial interests) of the property owner. Why?
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One of the great things about COTH is that other people often say what I am thinking and do a much better job of it than I would. I started composing, in my head, a response to Marigold’s post as I was reading it, but now I can just say, “Yes. Exactly what @Horsegirl’s Mom said.”
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Except EN went to USEF first. Then EN/LW apparently weren’t satisfied with whatever was happening behind the scenes (please note that the USEA region rep had no idea about any of this mess until it blew up - so they circumvented the chain of command too) and then sent email to the BOD of PFEE. That led to the loss.
“I’m not sure it ever occurred to them (before they went down this road - it appears they realized at some point along the road, per John Thier in COTH) that he would respond by taking his toys and going home.”
Except they were told it could happen and chose to push their way in. They didn’t like the pace of change.
"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 that means there were emails sent by EN/LW to the BOD of PFEE. Otherwise, why would Thier have responded?
This was a total failure of imagination on the part of EN. Plus I don’t buy it. They say they are journalists. Surely they researched the backgrounds of the BOD of PFEE. They should have. If they had they would have known he had already been the subject of state and journalism investigations in the past. It was terribly unlikely that he would want more of the same and when the threat of wider media being brought to bear, they should have anticipated him folding the tent and sending them all away.
No one needs equestrians on their land. No one. He had already put in over 20 years and a great deal of money and effort to accommodate the demands of eventers and apparently, had had enough of it. This was the final straw for him.
If getting the name changed was the goal, they failed. It may have succeeded by 2021 but to start this in June and knowing the big event is in September and to still push for the venue name change was shortsighted. Plus it couldn’t be done as the legal name was already licensed and you can’t simply changed it that quickly. Alt_rider explained the process and the costs earlier in this thread. It can cost $50,000 - $100,000 to do it. That is a lot of dosh.
They wanted him to change the name (which would cost 50K-100K) and get the license changed to reflect a name that met their approval AND do it by September.
Why would you be surprised that as a consequence he told USEA, USEF and EN to get off his land and leave him alone?
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Is this directed at me? Because if so:
I’m not trying to be argumentative. Of course someone could understand my point and still disagree. There are 86 pages of proof of that.
I genuinely have no idea how I could make it more clear that I understand this. Please, if you have a suggestion, I would truly love to hear it. Going in circles isn’t fun for anyone.
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That is a great summary of my points, and I really appreciate you reading and thinking enough about them to summarize even though you disagree. Thank you.
I addressed upthread that I don’t think this expense should be borne entirely or even at all by the event. In my other life, I have managed the finances for a similar change and you are absolutely right that they are non-trivial.
To accomplish this, there are many way this event could have managed this. One such example would have been to partner with Eventing Nation. They could have announced in conjunction with this year’s running that they would be changing the name starting in 2021, in order to reinforce how welcome they wanted BIPOC equestrians to feel. They could have highlighted some of their actions that back up that goal (ex. donating to Work to Ride in the past, etc.), and could have increased engagement by running a contest to choose the new name. The new name could have consisted of options that honored the same traditions that the original name honored (ex. “Logan’s Woods” or “Pine Field”), emphasizing the history of the grounds and the proud tradition of the family. Given that this is an issue people are currently paying attention to, this would almost certainly have generated a significant amount of positive press and eliminated the marketing spend, which is a significant portion of the cost. They could have crowd-funded for the hard costs (signage, etc.) as a way for the eventing community as a whole to put their money where their mouth is on this issue.
To @MorganSercu’s point, they wouldn’t even need to change the legal name (the business I worked with on this didn’t). Since this is an optical issue, they just needed to file a DBA. Much easier and much cheaper.
It’s important to note that it doesn’t have to be either/or. As I outlined above, there are lots of ways that the property owner could rename the event while maintaining the family connection to the service project that is special to them.
That said, I don’t have an opinion on what should matter more because it’s not my event. I know what would matter more to me, and to many people I know, but the property owner is not obligated to feel the same way and it seems that he doesn’t. What I very much hope is that the property owner was afforded an opportunity to understand how other people might be feeling, and that he made the decision he did knowingly. Otherwise, we have all lost for no reason.
I’m not saying they don’t, I’m just saying they won’t. I don’t know why Microsoft is named Microsoft, I just know that it is. When something reaches the scale of this event (an international level competition that draws competitors from all across the country and Canada), it becomes a brand name. People rarely investigate the reasons behind those names, they just make assumptions about what those names are meant to celebrate. That’s why I pointed to “lost-in-translation” brand like these ones – to me, the issues are very similar. I used these examples earlier (worth reading even if just for a laugh, if you need one):
https://gulfbusiness.com/top-10-brands-lost-in-translation/
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5241-international-marketing-fails.html
Again, thank you for taking the time to understand my posts and raise your concerns with my position. I appreciate the opportunity to move the discussion forward, even if we ultimately don’t agree.
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Okay. Do you see that changing the venue name would set him back a great deal of money? It’s not chump change to do this and particularly not when the venue name was already licensed with USEF.
So relative strangers, people he has tried to cater to and placate for 20 years, in addition to reaching into his own pocket, plus doing fundraising and smoothing over relations with the neighbors impacted when a bunch of horse trailers are crowding the back roads leading to the site and then to have threatened mainstream media coverage too if he didn’t placate EN may simply have led to his decision to throw in the towel.
There were multiple emails sent to the BOD of PFEE. Leslie posted them here and then deleted them. So it’s not as though there was only ONE email that may have upset the BOD. No, there were more than one and for all we know there may have been a flurry of them from USEA and USEF.
He didn’t need the hassle and whatever warm feelings he had for eventing and eventers evaporated.
Let us hope that the riders who went to his home and thanked him personally may yet persuade him to let equestrians use the land still. But I wouldn’t hold my breath; I would be very surprised if he renewed a business association with USEA and USEF anytime soon, if ever again.
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Eventing Nation could only come up with $1000 for those diversity scholarships. They were able to get donations of an additional $4200. That wouldn’t be anywhere near what is needed in this instance.
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