Sunday, October 25, 2015
New Zealand to scrape three racist location names off the map and replace them with less offensive monikers
Renaming of place-names continues in America too. An Alaskan mountain known as Mount McKinley since 1917 has recently been renamed "Denali" by Obama, apparently in deference to some native tradition. Naming the mountain to honor an assassinated U.S. President was not good enough, apparently. That the President concerned led his nation to victory in the Spanish-American war and ruled over a period of great American prosperity fades into insignificance compared with honoring a custom of an obscure native tribe
The names of three places in New Zealand could be permanently wiped off the map - for being too offensive.
Nigger Hill, Nigger Stream and Niggerhead - which lie at the base of the Southern Alps, in North Canterbury - could be changed if a proposal by the New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) is given the greenlight.
Under the proposed changes, Nigger Hill will be renamed Kānuka Hills, Nigger Stream will become Steelhead Stream and Niggerhead will be named Tawhai Hill, NZME reported.
The new names were suggested by a member of the public, Stuff cited NZGB secretary Wendy Shaw as saying.
'The proposals... are based on these names being in poor taste, offensive, discriminatory and derogatory,' she said.
The new names represent native trees in the area.
Public consultation on the name changes of the three places at the Southern Alps will be open for three months from October 29.
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5 comments:
Place name changes such as this have been going on in the States for some time.
A similar situation occurs when schools have been forced to change the names of their sports teams or the Washington Redskins are being attacked. Here in Jacksonville, FL, a high school was forced to change its longstanding name from Nathan Bedford Forrest High School to Westside High School.
AIB/44
Denali was not changed to "Mt. McKinley" to "honor" an assassinated hero-president.
It was changed to curry favor for the candidate preferred by an itinerant prospector.
The recent change back to its original name was the right thing done at the wrong time by the wrong person for the wrong reason.
P.C. idioticy at its most rediclous
Larry is correct, Alaskans have predominantly been calling the mountain Denali for the last seventy plus years. The only thing that kept it from an official change was that representatives from the state of Ohio (where McKinley was from) were able to veto the change. The great zero trumped them with an executive order to attempt to gain more legacy.
MDH
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