City report on Confederate monuments raises idea of renaming Austin

[Telegraph_it 3,358]

5 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

i have a friend who lives on one of the two streets that was renamed.  it's a nightmare.  mail not getting delivered b/c systems can't reconcile the old name vs the new name.  credit cards getting cancelled because they trip fraud alerts.  mortgage payments, bill payments, and paychecks not going through because the new address doesn't match what differing gvt agencies have on record even AFTER several calls have been made.  it's not as simple as going in to a system and changing a name. 

This. This is pretty crappy. 

[futureman 22,512]

23 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

Just the opposite; that it will never happen means they weren't correct.

While there will always be nuts supporting any crazy cause, most people are against renaming shit and removing monuments to people who, although they may have had slaves or supported slavery, were being honored for things having nothing to do with slavery.    The successful push has been to remove monuments that literally honor people for defending slavery.   Clear dividing line.   And, as Austin isn't named in tribute to the defense of slavery, it's not at risk, just like Washington isn't changing. 

yeah, guy.  the dividing line is clear and defined and will not be crossed.  you’re so wise. 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

7 minutes ago, futureman said:

yeah, guy.  the dividing line is clear and defined and will not be crossed.  you’re so wise. 

Other people's opinions are scary and threatening! 

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

11 hours ago, Mojo Hand said:

Quote

I don't see why Grady not participating in the Civil War is so significant to you; that's not the only way someone can have a distasteful legacy.   As far as I can tell, his main relevance to Texas was his racist post-War actions. 

I don't really give a shit about Grady per se -- he was a Georgian newspaper editor credited with championing the idea of the New South, where industry and finance competed with agriculture. New South, as opposed to the Lost Cause Old South. 

Yes, he was racist -- so was virtually every other white person, but most historians believe he a moderate FOR HIS TIME.

Still, his relevance to Texas and Houston is limited to that New South concept, and given when Henry Grady and where school opened -- shortly after Brown vs Board and in a hoity-toity brand-new white flight suburb -- it's hard to argue that it's very existence under that name was racist, albeit in country club and not redneck terms.

 

Quote

 I agree that changing Lanier wouldn't be justified purely by his participation in the Confederate Army, although I'm not sure that's really what happened.   I'll amend my take to include people who aren't significant enough for their names to survive when school names are being reevaluated.  Some of them might get caught in the crossfire, like Lanier, but the Bob Lanier compromise pretty much reflects that nobody gave much of a shit either way about it.

 

It wasn't a compromise, and people very much did give a shit. Generations of alumni crusaded against it. They even hired former investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino to spearhead their PR campaign. 

It certainly didn't help that the renamings were the pet crusade of HISD board member Jolanda Jones, who at the time (and may still) was also starring on a cable reality show, and this was a major plotline. And it also came to light that after the Alton Sterling shooting she appeared on a flyer for a protest against "the Baton Rouge Pigs" alongside a member of an SPLC-certified hate group. (The New Black Panther Party.)

 

Edited July 31, 2018 by MaybeACoordinator

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

And I forgot to add -- lumping in the likes of Lanier the rebel private and Grady the mildly racist, non-combatant civic crusader with Confederate leaders is the first slip down the slippery slope. 

[futureman 22,512]

37 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Other people's opinions are scary and threatening! 

I wasn’t talking about that.  I was just pointing out your ignorance. 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

16 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

It wasn't a compromise, and people very much did give a shit. Generations of alumni crusaded against it. They even hired former investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino to spearhead their PR campaign. 

It certainly didn't help that the renamings were the pet crusade of HISD board member Jolanda Jones, who at the time (and may still be) was also starring on a cable reality show, and this was a major plotline. And it also came to light that after the Alton Sterling shooting she appeared on a flyer for a protest against "the Baton Rouge Pigs" alongside a member of an SPLC-certified hate group. (The New Black Panther Party.)

 

I meant that nobody in Houston gives a shit about Lanier the man.  And Bob Lanier was absolutely a compromise; from the start it was floated as a way to keep "Lanier" while getting rid of the guy it was named after.  Edit: for example, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/How-to-change-Lanier-Middle-School-s-name-without-6827244.php

Maybe you're right, and Austin goes back to Waterloo and Washington, D.C. becomes some other city name.   I don't think we're going down any slippery slope, and the handful of folks like Lanier who get replaced will meet that fate largely because of their lack of local significance.  We shall see, starting with where this Austin idea goes from here. 

Edited July 31, 2018 by Mojo Hand

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

7 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

I meant that nobody in Houston gives a shit about Lanier the man.  And Bob Lanier was absolutely a compromise; from the start it was floated as a way to keep "Lanier" while getting rid of the guy it was named after.  Edit: for example, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/How-to-change-Lanier-Middle-School-s-name-without-6827244.php

 

I tried to get them to consider changing it to Vassar Miller. She was an amazing woman -- overcame cerebral palsy to become probably the most critically acclaimed poet in Texas history.

She was from Houston. Not only that, she also attended Lanier. And not only that, she claimed to be a descendant of related to Sidney Lanier. 

Edited July 31, 2018 by MaybeACoordinator

[Deej 76,861]

Can't we just rename the city after Denise Austin?

[JimmyJames 12,271]

Always did like Waterloo. I’d be ok with that one. 

[Saint Austin 745]

27 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Always did like Waterloo. I’d be ok with that one. 

And offend the citizens of French descent?? You are one xenophobic and hateful bastard. 

[Macanudo 12,999]

7 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well, his resume is a long way from mind-blowing, but he does have a masters degree, and doesn't exactly make private sector C-level money, whereas his secretary graduated from high school and makes more than almost all AISD teachers.

Let's not get too crazy with our faux outrage here.

I'm not outraged by this story at all.   It is what it is.   But I bet there are 20 or more "Chief XXX Officers" who work for city of Austin.   Are they all C-Level?  

[Thetexashammer 1,062]

2 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

 

She was from Houston. Not only that, she also attended Lanier. And not only that, she claimed to be a descendant of related to Sidney Lanier. 

Purple Pups HOLLA!!!!!!

[jimmyjazz 46,001]

43 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

I'm not outraged by this story at all.   It is what it is.   But I bet there are 20 or more "Chief XXX Officers" who work for city of Austin.   Are they all C-Level?  

Well, I guess I was working on the presumption that "Chief" anything was C-level, even if it has become watered down over the last decade or two by an explosion of goofy titles.  (My last company named a "Chief Innovation Officer" who did jack shit, and all the innovation came out of my department anyway.)

But my main point is the guy is making $145K in a management role, which is perfectly reasonable for Austin, and his secretary (who apparently never attended college, or certainly didn't graduate) is making $56K, which seems excessive, so pointing out the discrepancy seems silly.

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

18 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

Purple Pups HOLLA!!!!!!

A black friend of mine / Lanier alum told me that he would have been much happier of they had changed Purple Pups rather than Sidney-to-Bob. 

[Orca of Peace 109]

El Arroyo 

[PvilleStang 2,917]

8 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well, I guess I was working on the presumption that "Chief" anything was C-level, even if it has become watered down over the last decade or two by an explosion of goofy titles.  (My last company named a "Chief Innovation Officer" who did jack shit, and all the innovation came out of my department anyway.)

But my main point is the guy is making $145K in a management role, which is perfectly reasonable for Austin, and his secretary (who apparently never attended college, or certainly didn't graduate) is making $56K, which seems excessive, so pointing out the discrepancy seems silly.

To be fair, they're doing the same thing.  Milking tax payers for doing jack shit in regards to helping Austin with its current larger issues (traffic, infrastructure, understaffing in important areas like building inspectors, police, utility workers, etc).  It shouldn't take longer to get a building permit approved than it takes to get fucking streets renamed.  

[phdhorn 6,224]

Wait... if this is the "Austin Equity Office", why is there a position called "CHIEF Equity Officer?"

Doesn't "Chief" interject an unequal footing, implying that one person is superior to others, plus it's kind of a slam against American Indians.  I mean if this were really an equity office, er'rybody would be paid the same and have the same level of responsibilities.

Fucking hypocrites.

[Beau Vine 54,322]

Obligatory:

[InkaUtexas 26,022]

Just name it The Capitol of Texas, home to The University of Texas. 

Or Gridlock.

[Texas_Rocks 346]

Compromise- San Austintonio

[MissingInAction 25,134]

Maybe if we start separating Californian immigrants from their children they'll stop moving here.

[Art Vandelay 1,712]

13 hours ago, Saint Austin said:

And offend the citizens of French descent?? You are one xenophobic and hateful bastard. 

Username checks out.

3 hours ago, PvilleStang said:

To be fair, they're doing the same thing.  Milking tax payers for doing jack shit in regards to helping Austin with its current larger issues (traffic, infrastructure, understaffing in important areas like building inspectors, police, utility workers, etc).  It shouldn't take longer to get a building permit approved than it takes to get fucking streets renamed.  

Avatar checks out.

[NorthLoop 14,219]

On 7/29/2018 at 5:58 PM, slorch said:

Vincent County

Nope. That dude owned TONS of folks.

[Guest]

touche.

[Deej 76,861]

Considering how the Spanish raped and pillaged their way across the New World, I think Guadalupe and every other Spanish-named street should be changed.

[NeverMarryAStripper 21,913]

Why don't we just assign every city and and street a numerical name so we don't offend anyone.  Austin can be renamed City #4 in the State of Texas.  Streets will all have names like Street #1 in City #4 in Texas.  Then again, State names might be offensive too, so maybe we should go with Street #1 in City #4 in State #1.  Schools can all be renamed too, like elementary school #1 on street #1 in city #4 in State #1.  Zip codes are probably still okay since are already just numbers.

[MadBurgerMaker 404]

Brion Oaks sounds like a shitty KB Homes development.  Right next to The Oaks at Brion and across the street from Brion Pointe.

 

E:  Not just The Oaks.  Hidden Oaks at Brion.  

Edited July 31, 2018 by MadBurgerMaker

[InkaUtexas 26,022]

31 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

Why don't we just assign every city and and street a numerical name so we don't offend anyone.  Austin can be renamed City #4 in the State of Texas.  Streets will all have names like Street #1 in City #4 in Texas.  Then again, State names might be offensive too, so maybe we should go with Street #1 in City #4 in State #1.  Schools can all be renamed too, like elementary school #1 on street #1 in city #4 in State #1.  Zip codes are probably still okay since are already just numbers.

My zip ends in 666. Might offend someone with that. 

[Trey3216 15,350]

On 7/30/2018 at 2:01 AM, MaybeACoordinator said:

She's not missing. She dead. The found her chopped up corpse (along with her son's) in 2001, six years after the vanished. 

Very very racist. D'Austin might be better .

A thousand times this. Everywhere I know of where this is going on, the neighborhood or city is been hoity-toitied to fuck. "Hey we cleared out the whole neighborhood where family had been living since Juneteenth +1, and it's all been replaced with condos, luxury apartment complex, dog salons, and cat coffeehouses, but I'll tell you what -- we'll change the name of that school your kids now live too far away from to attend."

I can do you one better: Welcome to Woke Austin.  

 

Houston HISD changed the name of Henry Grady Junior High. Grady did not serve in the Confederate amy -- he we was a kid when the Civil War ended. Some of his later writings had some racist passages but it was a rare 1880s scribbler who did not. 

In that wave of monument removals, they got rid of some obvious choices: Lee, Davis, Jackson, and Dick Dowling, who at least had a case as a prominent Houstonian. All of those guys not only served in the CS army, but also led men into battle of presided over the entire short-lived attempt at a nation.

I've got no problems with any of that save for Dowling, who like him or not, was homegrown and widely considered a bigger hero to locals than even Sam Houston until about 1920 or so. In the end, though, it was shitty that the jr high that bore his name was something like 99.9 percent black and brown. (It's also VY's alma mater, but was there a campaign to rename it after him? Nooooooooo....)

If HISD had called it a day then and there, fine. But, of course, they did not. Also on the chopping block: Sidney Lanier, a teenaged private when he enlisted in the rebel army, worked in the signal corps, and spent much of the war in a Yankee POW camp. Clearly no combat-tested badass or leader of men. His fame comes from his postwar career as a poet and musician / composer. 

Who is honored with renamed school? That would be former Houston mayor Bob Lanier, a white dude who got the ball rolling on erasing Houston's Freedmans Town from the map. It had survived against all odds in the shadow of downtown for about 125 years, but then Good Ol' Boy Bob called in some chits and now there is almost nothing of it left. See my reply to @Deej above. 

Somehow the HISD brainiacs omitted changing the name of Oran Roberts Elem, even though he was a colonel in the CS army and freaking presided over the Texas Secession Convention.

While it might have been an oversight at first, I am 100 percent certain they know about the Roberts exception now.

Tl; dr:

HISD claimed it was solely about Confederate leaders, only people whose names you know via the war.  

And yet they gave a pass to one of Texas's most renowned rebel leaders. They changed another that honored a journalist / news magnate who was 14 when the war ended, and another, Lanier, who seems like he was an average at best soldier and after the war, pretty much what we today would call a hippy -- hardly any Southern men of his time wrote poetry or played music. Maybe Sidney Lanier was gay? Maybe the school would still be named after him if only he'd been woke enough to come out of the closet in 1873?

Sorry for the long-winded response, but to your point, Mojo, Houston's round of iconoclasm set a few shitty precedents.

 

 

 

No: it's worse. He had slaves.  

All of that said, I don't think this can happen, but if Austin were to be the first domino of his kind to fall in Texas, it would be open season on pretty much every Texan born before 1850 or so...Austin introduced slaves into colony, and pretty much every prominent family in Texas up to Fort Sumter had slaves or benefited greatly from a slave economy. 

You can remove the telling of history from books, you can topple the display of history in the public arena, but you can't remake the facts. We can go back and erase the 19th Century. On that note, I am for the tit for tat measure. There should be a monument to evils of slavery near all of those dudes' statues, or on the campuses of their schools, and that monument should make it plain that slavery was the hill the entire South chose to die on.

 

Perhaps at every one of the counter monuments we could put additional monuments of African Tribal men selling other Africans into slavery as they raped their wives and daughters and slaughtered their sons, you know, for posterity.  

 

Erasing history doesn’t do shit for making anything better.  Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it and what have you.  

Edited August 1, 2018 by Trey3216
Autocorrect formed/doomed

[NeverMarryAStripper 21,913]

Probably should just get rid of all statues of people. No human is perfect and will therefore offend someone.

[Loco 3,753]

Why don't we get the sensitive old racists a safe space that they can reminisce about the good ole days when everyone was happy and knew their place.   Fuck southern "heritage" right in it's diabetes ridden ass.  We all took a vote, racists suck, get over it.  Welcome to Kim Kardashian Village.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Loco

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

Jordanville, after Barbara. Aren't there about five statues of her in Austin? One of these days those statues will be the only black people residing in Austin.

[RDCanecutter 26,458]

35 minutes ago, MadBurgerMaker said:

Brion Oaks sounds like a shitty KB Homes development.  Right next to The Oaks at Brion and across the street from Brion Pointe.

 

E:  Not just The Oaks.  Hidden Oaks at Brion.  

To make it a proper real estate development, it must have neither oaks nor Brions.

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

Anybody who has ever lived in Austin now takes this for granted, but Austin has the whitest MLK Blvd in America. 

[Deej 76,861]

The folks pushing for this would freak the fuck out if any minorities moved next door to them.

[phdhorn 6,224]

1 hour ago, Deej said:

Considering how the Spanish raped and pillaged their way across the New World, I think Guadalupe and every other Spanish-named street should be changed.

Considering how the Pre-Spanish raped and pillaged their way across the New World, I think anything not named after a plant is honoring destructive, wanton aggression.

[Deej 76,861]

I don't know. There's some pretty invasive plant species. 

[RDCanecutter 26,458]

12 minutes ago, Deej said:

The folks pushing for this would freak the fuck out if any minorities moved next door to them.

Freak out? Nah. They'd grin rigidly and bob arrhythmically to the Rap or Banda pumping through the wall. "Hi there, compadre!"

[Deej 76,861]

8 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Freak out? Nah. They'd grin rigidly and bob arrhythmically to the Rap or Banda pumping through the wall. "Hi there, compadre!"

Nope. Gardeners and housekeepers need to be out by 4:00.

[Beau Vine 54,322]

2 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

My zip ends in 666. Might offend someone with that. 

Orale San Marcos!

[Lone Star Horn 2,018]

On 7/30/2018 at 1:57 PM, gsoda3 said:

i have a friend who lives on one of the two streets that was renamed.  it's a nightmare.  mail not getting delivered b/c systems can't reconcile the old name vs the new name.  credit cards getting cancelled because they trip fraud alerts.  mortgage payments, bill payments, and paychecks not going through because the new address doesn't match what differing gvt agencies have on record even AFTER several calls have been made.  it's not as simple as going in to a system and changing a name. 

How much notice did he have, it would be the same as moving.

Sorry, but this is dumb on his part. couldn't he have just gone to the local post office and noted that mail to the old address be forwarded to the new address, even though it's the same location? Once he gets the credit card bill that was forwarded, he could call (or go online for)the credit card companies and update his address. Paychecks not direct deposit? Change info on his company's records, just like a move? Mortgage might be harder, but i'm sure there's a way to change that, since the city changed the name of the street.

[KaiserSoze 998]

You don't seem to understand the statement you bolded. It's not that his friend didn't update his address, it's that the new street name isn't yet recognized by various systems.

The street that feeds into mine was renamed recently and the same thing has happened.

[PvilleStang 2,917]

Also, he didn't take any actions other than persisting on a street that had its name changed to protect the offend-agencia.  The amount of hassle and work that was created for all residents on those given streets are bullshit.  Credit cards, bank accounts, utility accounts that don't integrate with the city.  Shit that shouldn't have to be dealt with when you didn't move or change your name.

[MissingInAction 25,134]

I am on Robert E Lee/wtf it's named now street at least once a week, and I have never seen anything but white people on it. 

[Loco 3,753]

On 7/30/2018 at 9:24 PM, Deej said:

Can't we just rename the city after Denise Austin?

 

Fook Yu!

[Deej 76,861]

36 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

I am on Robert E Lee/wtf it's named now street at least once a week, and I have never seen anything but white people on it. 

If you aren't white on that street, the story probably ends up in the "Running thread of white people calling cops on people of color for everyday stuff..." 

[gsoda3 3,274]

10 hours ago, Lone Star Horn said:

How much notice did he have, it would be the same as moving.

Sorry, but this is dumb on his part. couldn't he have just gone to the local post office and noted that mail to the old address be forwarded to the new address, even though it's the same location? Once he gets the credit card bill that was forwarded, he could call (or go online for)the credit card companies and update his address. Paychecks not direct deposit? Change info on his company's records, just like a move? Mortgage might be harder, but i'm sure there's a way to change that, since the city changed the name of the street.

 

2 hours ago, KaiserSoze said:

You don't seem to understand the statement you bolded. It's not that his friend didn't update his address, it's that the new street name isn't yet recognized by various systems.

The street that feeds into mine was renamed recently and the same thing has happened.

yeah, this is the problem.  he'd put advance notice in to everything he could think of, and the problems started when on may xx (or whatever date the names changed) almost every system started kicking back discrepancy errors.  the dumbest thing was the city's own electric utility not being able to reconcile the change.  twice.  in a span of two weeks.  

1 hour ago, PvilleStang said:

Also, he didn't take any actions other than persisting on a street that had its name changed to protect the offend-agencia.  The amount of hassle and work that was created for all residents on those given streets are bullshit.  Credit cards, bank accounts, utility accounts that don't integrate with the city.  Shit that shouldn't have to be dealt with when you didn't move or change your name.

yup.

[OrangEngr 1,035]

I didn’t realize the name Austin was double ungood.  I don’t know what to think now, I better ask MinTruth

[TornACL 7,722]

Migas, Texas

 

Problem solved.