In San Francisco, Virus is Contained but Schools Are Still Closed

[David Lockmiller]

The frustration in San Francisco boiled over last month when district administrators told the principals of roughly one-third of the district’s 125 public schools that their communities should start brainstorming new names for their schools, because their current names had historical associations with slavery, genocide, colonization or other injustices. The list included schools named for Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and even the state’s senior U.S. senator, Dianne Feinstein.

The president of the Board of Education, Mark Sanchez, said in response that the renaming process was not interfering with preparations to reopen.

I would like to know how the name of Abraham Lincoln got on that list for renaming schools for just cause. I wonder if the name, Nikole Hannah-Jones, will come up. I am also curious to see if the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.

[Gene C]

Don't worry David. I'm sure the money being cut from the city budget on defunding the police will help pay for all the cost of this including some new office furniture for the district administrator. As a result of this change, the improvement in the childrens education and well being over time just can't be measured.

[David Lockmiller]

(11-02-2020 08:14 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Don't worry David.

“S.F. might change 44 school names, renouncing Washington, Lincoln and even Dianne Feinstein” – San Francisco Chronicle story headline, by Jill Tucker, Oct. 15, 2020.

San Francisco School Board President Mark Sanchez said he didn’t anticipate that the board would change the name of all 44 schools, but those on the list “should be prepared.”

The panel includes 12 community members appointed by the superintendent and approved by the school board, as well as district staff members and board President Mark Sanchez. It was formed in January and has since met 10 times, with members doing their own research, looking at newspaper articles, among other resources to identify whether the name on a school met the criteria for renaming, which includes anyone or anything associated with slavery, genocide, colonization, exploitation and oppression, among other factors.

Abraham Lincoln High is also on the list, based on the former president’s treatment of American Indian and native peoples. [This was a recent topic of discussion on the Lincoln Discussion Symposium in the RE: Abraham Lincoln statues thread and "Dakota 38," in particular.]

More than a third of the district’s 125 schools made the list of objectionable names . . . .

“Principals are devoting resources to this,” said parent Jonathan Alloy, whose children attend Commodore Sloat, one of the schools on the list. “We’re being presented with it as a fait accompli.”

The school board will have to vote on any recommended name changes, likely in late January or early February. But in the meantime, each school on the list is expected to come up with alternative names by Dec. 18.

The move . . . arrives in the wake of another controversial move by the district to address the country’s painful past: covering a mural depicting slavery and Native American mistreatment. Some of the alumni involved in the mural fight are gearing up for another battle over the renaming.

[Gene C]

If Lincoln and Washington are not suitable to name schools after, maybe this is what they are looking for to name a school after

the Illegal Drug Using Active Felon including Domestic Violence & Family Man, Rioting and Resisting Arrest Martyr & Role Model For Children - Public School

[David Lockmiller]

I sent the following email to the Mayor of San Francisco yesterday.

Subject line of email reads: Renaming of Abraham Lincoln High School by SF Board of Education

Dear San Francisco Mayor London Breed,

As I understand the situation, the SF Board of Education Committee is citing Lincoln’s involvement in the Dakota Uprising as their source of meeting the criteria listed.

The following is Lincoln's 11 Dec. 1862 statement to the Senate on the Indians to be executed:

Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I caused a careful examination of the records of trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females. Contrary to my expectations, only two of this class were found. I then directed a further examination, and a classification of all who were proven to have participated in massacres, as distinguished from participation in battles. This class numbered forty, and included the two convicted of female violation. One of the number is strongly recommended by the commission which tried them for commutation to ten years' imprisonment. I have ordered the other thirty-nine to be executed on Friday, the 19th instant.

[hyperlink to Lincoln's 11 Dec. 1862 statement to the Senate provided to Mayor.]

Lincoln commuted the death sentences of 265 of the 303 Dakota men condemned. He also later pardoned one of the 39 mentioned in the letter to the Senate after evidence came to his attention questioning the man's guilt.

After the 1864 midterm election, Minnesota Senator Alexander Ramsey told Lincoln that Republicans could have gotten a larger electoral majority in the state if Lincoln had allowed the execution of more Indians.

Lincoln told Ramsey, simply: "I could not afford to hang men for votes."

Episcopal Bishop Henry B. Whipple lobbied the President to reform the corrupt Indian agency system. In the spring of 1862, the bishop had recommended more humane treatment of the Minnesota Sioux. Lincoln promptly asked the secretary of the Interior to investigate, which he did and suggested numerous reforms.

The President told a friend that Whipple "came here the other day and talked with me about the rascality of this Indian business until I felt it down to my boots."

[President Lincoln] pledged to Bishop Whipple that "[i]f we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed."

(Henry B. Whipple, "Light and Shadows of a Long Episcopate, etc.," pages 136-137.

President Abraham Lincoln made it through the war but did not live long enough thereafter to reform the Indian system as he wanted to do.

Mayor Breed,

Please put a stop to this travesty of justice in renaming Abraham Lincoln High School for clearly invalid and unjust reasons.

Yours truly,
David Lockmiller

[RJNorton]

Well done, David!

[David Lockmiller]

(11-03-2020 11:37 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Well done, David!

Thank you, Roger.

P.S. Thanks to Steve for providing the hyperlink to President Lincoln's message to the Senate on the subject of the "Dakota 38." A good argument to the Mayor of San Francisco could not have been made without that information.

[RJNorton]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11...o-n09.html

[Rob Wick]

That's an interesting article Roger, especially coming from a Socialist website.

While I personally oppose what's going on here, does anyone really believe that one school district, or one college, taking such action would somehow change American or the world's view of Lincoln?

I've said it once before and I'll say it again, there are far more important things in the world to worry about than this. Most people will see this for what it is.

Best
Rob

[Gene C]

(11-09-2020 01:47 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  While I personally oppose what's going on here, does anyone really believe that one school district, or one college, taking such action would somehow change American or the world's view of Lincoln?

Of course it can. Stupid behavior is contagious. So is the spreading of miss-information.

From the link Roger just posted - Ripped from this historical context, the tragic events that took place in Minnesota 158 years ago are manipulated to portray Lincoln as a racist no different from those who called for the extermination of the Native populations. This is part of a larger campaign, spearheaded by the New York Times’ 1619 Project, to undermine the democratic and egalitarian legacy of America’s first two revolutions.

Remember "The Big Lie Theory" - A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". (Wikipedia)

Unfortunately, it's alive and well. -

[Rob Wick]

Quote:Of course it can. Stupid behavior is contagious. So is the spreading of miss-information.

From the link Roger just posted - Ripped from this historical context, the tragic events that took place in Minnesota 158 years ago are manipulated to portray Lincoln as a racist no different from those who called for the extermination of the Native populations. This is part of a larger campaign, spearheaded by the New York Times’ 1619 Project, to undermine the democratic and egalitarian legacy of America’s first two revolutions.

Remember "The Big Lie Theory" - A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". (Wikipedia)

Unfortunately, it's alive and well.

Tell that to Lerone Bennett, Edgar Lee Masters, Thomas Di Lorenzo or any of the others who have decimated forests trying to tear down Lincoln's reputation. It has not worked before, and it won't work now.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(11-09-2020 12:33 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11...o-n09.html

Thank you, Roger, for posting this information. I made a Word file of a few quotes:

Republican Minnesota Senator Morton Wilkinson and representatives Cyrus Aldrich and William Windom wrote to Lincoln reciting stories of rapes and mutilation “well known to our people” and protesting any decision to pardon or reprieve the Dakota. . . . Even the US Senate—controlled by Republicans—passed a resolution introduced by Senator Wilkinson in early December demanding that Lincoln carry out the executions.

The line of presidents that preceded Lincoln, dating back to Andrew Jackson, supported as state policy something that today would be defined as ethnic cleansing. This policy would reemerge with a vengeance with the explosive growth of American capitalism after the Civil War. Lincoln’s approach proved to be only a pause in this chain of dispossession and violence.

In view of these facts, we join fully in Marx’s assessment, written in the name of the International Working Men’s Association on news of Lincoln’s assassination, that he was “one of the rare men who succeed in becoming great, without ceasing to be good.”

---

(11-09-2020 02:26 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Tell that to Lerone Bennett, Edgar Lee Masters, Thomas Di Lorenzo or any of the others who have decimated forests trying to tear down Lincoln's reputation. It has not worked before, and it won't work now.

Best
Rob

Excuse me. Who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary?

To the best of your knowledge, has that award been rescinded?

And, in your opinion, has there been a lack of effort in having that award rescinded?

[Rob Wick]

Quote:Excuse me. Who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary?

OIher than you, I don't see that many people talking about that or who really care. If you honestly believe that a trade organization's annual awards, which is all the Pulitzers are, can tear down Lincoln's reputation, then his reputation was shaky to begin with.

Quote:To the best of your knowledge, has that award been rescinded?

No, and short of a Janet Cooke-style scandal, it never will be.

Quote:And, in your opinion, has there been a lack of effort in having that award rescinded?

From you, no. Everyone else is too busy marching for human rights, trying to turn Trump out of office and making sure they don't succumb to a dangerous virus.

Best
Rob

[David Lockmiller]

(11-10-2020 11:13 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote:And, in your opinion, has there been a lack of effort in having that award rescinded?

From you, no. Everyone else is too busy marching for human rights, trying to turn Trump out of office and making sure they don't succumb to a dangerous virus.

Best
Rob

On October 14, 2020, I made the following post:

RE: Abraham Lincoln statues

I learned yesterday of the following letter hosted on the National Association of Scholars website on October 6, 2020. [This date is less than one month before the national election.]

Pulitzer Board Must Revoke Nikole Hannah-Jones' Prize [See my original post for hyperlink.]

The letter begins with a statement by Peter Wood, President, National Association of Scholars:

The National Association of Scholars has agreed to host this public letter to the Pulitzer Prize Board. The letter calls on the Board to rescind the prize it awarded to Nikole Hannah-Jones earlier this year. I am one of the 21 signatories. A hard copy has been mailed to the Pulitzer Committee as well as a digital copy.

The first paragraph of the letter reads:

We call on the Pulitzer Prize Board to rescind the 2020 Prize for Commentary awarded to Nikole Hannah-Jones for her lead essay in “The 1619 Project.” That essay was entitled, “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written.” But it turns out the article itself was false when written, making a large claim that protecting the institution of slavery was a primary motive for the American Revolution, a claim for which there is simply no evidence.

These eminent scholars also wrote near the end of their letter:

“The duplicity of attempting to alter the historical record in a manner intended to deceive the public is as serious an infraction against professional ethics as a journalist can commit.” [Emphasis added for this post.]

However, no mention is made in the written pronouncement to the Pulitzer Prize Board of the specious attack by Nikole Hannah-Jones upon the character and reputation of President Abraham Lincoln regarding the August 14, 1862 meeting at the White House on a black colonization proposal presented by President Lincoln to the Committee of five prominent free black men.

[End of original post.]

I must conclude, therefore, that you do not consider the National Association of Scholars 21 signatories to be in the category you label "Everyone else."

[Rob Wick]

What exactly does all that prove? So there are at least 21 people in a nation of over 300,000,000 that agree with you. I honestly don't get your obsession with this. You disagree with it. That's fine. That's your right. But you seem to be afraid of what will happen to Lincoln's reputation among Americans if some misguided people are allowed to tear down a statue or change the name of a high school. I have more faith in Lincoln, and in my fellow countrymen, to worry about that.

Best
Rob