Facing Our Past

For John, BLUF:  Current Activities are over the top.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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While there is little doubt, at least on this blog, but the folks at Mizzou and Yale, and out in Amherst, Massachusetts, are pursuing a line that is not long term helpful in healing rifts in America based on race.  That said, we are illuminating some historic issues that have been swept under the carpet.  A prime example is that Democrat Party favorite, President Woodrow Wilson.

From Writer Dylan Matthews, of Vox, we have "Woodrow Wilson was extremely racist — even by the standards of his time".

The Vox article is about students demanding that the name Woodrow Wilson be eliminated from Princeton University, where Dr Wilson was President for eight years.  It should be noted that he probably didn't learn his racism in New Jersey.  But, racist he was.

I don't agree on scrubbing off the names of former racists or former slave owners.  Where will that end?  Should we eliminate the names of Massachusetts government leaders prior to the early 1800s for their blatant anti-Catholicism?♠  I doubt it.  Learn the history.  Draw the appropriate lessons.  Go forth and sin no more.

Then there is Amherst College, where folks want to do away with the unofficial mascot, Lord Jeff.  It might be a good idea, but Lord Jeff is Lord Jeffery Amherst.  I would think that if the mascot has to go, then the name of the college has to go, for the same reason, and the name of the town as well.  If we are going to clean up this mess, we need to clean it all up.  My proposed alternative is to acknowledge the past and learn from it.  Would that be so hard?

And, as for Harvard Law School, have there not been sufficient graduates who have worked for human rights to justify letting them keep three sheaves of wheat on their emblem?  However, in this case I say abolish it.  We will still have Suffolk and Boston College and New England School of Law.

What we don't need is the destruction of a semester of university education over this issue.  Or worse, that we find free speech going into eclipse and ideas become more bound to some politically correct vision of the Social Justice Warriors.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Such as in the Commonwealth's Constitution.