We read:
"This state's official name — The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations — is more than just a mouthful. To many, it evokes stinging reminders of Rhode Island's prime role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Voters next Tuesday will decide whether to change the name by dropping the words "and Providence Plantations." The issue has been debated for years, but lawmakers last year authorized a ballot question for the first time following an impassioned debate over race relations, ancestry and history.
"You go anywhere and you mention plantations and what automatically comes to a person's mind is slavery," said Nick Figueroa, 41, a member of a legislative minority advisory coalition that backs changing the name.
Supporters of the referendum see the ballot question as a chance to erase the state's links to slavery and remove a word they associate with human bondage and suffering. But opponents, including Gov. Don Carcieri, note that the state name actually has nothing to do with slavery and that, in any case, changing it will do nothing to alter history.
The phrase "Providence Plantations" appeared in the royal charter granted in 1663 by King Charles II to the colony of Rhode Island. At the time, "Plantation" was a general term for settlement or colony.
Keith Stokes, who is multiracial and can trace his family's arrival to Newport back centuries, said the debate over the state name ignores Rhode Island's legacy as a colony founded on religious tolerance, where Jews, Quakers and other minorities settled in large numbers after being rejected elsewhere.
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5 comments:
Wait, I thought that everyone claims that slavery only happened in the South? After all, that's why the South so aggressively fought against the North, right? ;-)
-sig
How about, The Peoples Republic of Rhode Island?
"Racism resides only in the minds of racists, not in a name."
Another case of PCists misunderstanding the words they object to - in this case a plantation being of colonists not of cotton. Also a clan doesn't necessarily refer to the KKK and can be a surname group of Scottish descent.
What I do not understand is how R.I. has not changed the name of Brown University. The school is named after a man who made his money on the slave trade, wouldn't that be more offensive? (Personally I am politically incorrect and do not care, but it is funny to know that about such a Leftist university).
It's also mostly black, and heavily funded by the tax-paying fools of this country. That may answer your question.
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