Good Thing Our Town is Named Burlingame

From everything we know now, Anson Burlingame has an exceptional reputation even by 2020's slippery standards.  We noted much of his story here when his bust was unveiled in the library and here when we described how Burlingame, Kansas came to be.  But if we are to listen to the revisionist social justice warriors from SF, our elementary schools need to be changed--lots of them.  It's not clear if the SJWs have spent much time on old Ben Franklin who might be iffy, but Washington, Lincoln, Hoover, McKinley and Roosevelt have to go!  Good thing we don't have a Feinstein Elementary because it too would have to go.

I do wonder who will be the first B'game based SJW to broach the subject and how long it will take.  We have a bit of a breather after SF Mayor London Breed called the idea "offensive" yesterday.  Not the idea of changing, just the idea of changing in the middle of the pandemic.  I give it til the end of the year here in B'game.  So much for the idea of "teachable moments".  Better to cancel than educate.

Comments

[Joe]

Here's a pointed letter to the SF Chron editors in today's paper:

Let’s vet the vetters

Here’s my recommendation for the SFUSD renaming process: Start with the committee members’ biographies.

Let’s hear about their backgrounds and qualifications. Have them disclose their schools, universities and grades, and how they fared in American history. Have them write a 500-word essay on why they think they are qualified to rename Washington and Lincoln high schools. Have educators from UC and Stanford rate them on the standard A-F scale. If they don’t get at least a C, fire them.

Here’s my other recommendation. Let’s come up with some names we can all agree we like: Joe Montana, Steph Curry, Willie Mays, Mickey Mouse.

And one for the committee: Goofy High.

Bob Bowen, Mill Valley
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Now we're talking! Wanna bet half of the renaming committee can't even pass the citizenship test? I'll take that bet.

[Paloma Ave]

Idiots have long been associated with San Francisco politics and apparently they are breeding like crazy.

Or is it the indoctrination occuring in public education?

[Barking Dog]

1st Burlingame SJW's....Brownrigg and Beach and more verbal diarrhea out of them.

[Jennifer Pfaff]

T'was just a matter of time. The "renaming" presents problems, too, Joe, because I doubt anyone under consideration (likely including the list of athletes in the aforementioned letter) has a completely pristine reputation- so we'd be doing this every few years, whenever something is unearthed.

I've heard it suggested that nobody living should be considered for this honor; that's probably wise. However, it doesn't seem quite fair if nobody is around to defend the reputations of those long gone, should any blemishes be uncovered. So, what to do....?

As some may know, our two earliest two extant elementary schools started out as Oak Grove Elementary (later renamed McKinley Elementary) and Howard Avenue School (later renamed Washington School), so at least those could "revert" to their original names.

[resident]

You have uncovered the next 6 inches of the iceberg. Before we rename something for a street name we MUST check out for whom that street was named and all of his/her/they sins. What if Howard was a hunter at the Country Club and therefore mean to animals? Oak Grove is likely OK but not those evil eucalyptus fire hazards.

[MBGA]

Common man, Mickey Mouse was a racist with that blackface act.
No way we're going to name high schools after that guy.

[Barking Dog]

Well according to Dumdum's colleague(comrade) at Peninsula for Everyone, Burlingame wont make the cut of names not controversial....because Anson Burlingame was an 'Old White Dude'

https://mobile.twitter.com/cafedujord/status/1318642063970193408

[Everything's Jake]

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

[Joe]

Here is the opening paragraph from the SF Comicle editorial on school name changes:

"Wherever a monument to the Confederacy meets a deserved demise, its defenders can be counted on to warn that this is the top of a slippery slope toward a wholesale cleansing of every trace of our history based on the sensitivities of 21st-century leftists. It’s a specious, disingenuous argument, but the San Francisco school board is doing its best to prove it right."

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These clowns cannot even self-edit to take out their own hypocrisy. They're literally blind to their own hypocrisy. It's "specious" and "disingenuous".....oh, and it's true.

[Shelly Knides]

does anyone know the latest with the Burlingame Public Elementary schools?

My neighbor recently told me that there is no plan for reopening the doors and welcoming the children back.

The Teachers are stating that the School District does not have a plan to present?

Sounds like a mess.

[Peter Garrison]

Charter schools.
Went on a walking tour of Pacific Heights yesterday and the Catholic schools are open with children learning, playing and having a great time in the sun.

[Joe Biden]

"By the way all you teachers out there, not that many of you are going to die so don't worry about it".

[Mom]

Last night Joe Biden said "By the way all you teachers out there, not that many of you are going to die so don't worry about it".

OK, BSD and SMUSHD. Let's get to it.

[Joe]

Regular Voice readers already know the essence of today's Guest Perspective in the DJ by Barbara and Jack Burlingame. We covered much of it in the past and it was front and center at the unveiling of Anson's bust in the library:

https://www.burlingamevoice.com/2018/11/welcoming-anson-back-to-bgame.html

Today's DJ piece starts off:

As an outspoken congressman, fervent abolitionist and groundbreaking diplomat, Burlingame dedicated his life to causes as significant now as two centuries ago. Indeed, Burlingame likely would have felt right at home today as he was in mid-19th century America, joining protests for racial justice, fair treatment of immigrants, equality and the sovereignty of nations.

In the mid-1800s, during the months leading up to the Civil War, Burlingame crisscrossed the country giving fearless and uncompromising orations against slavery at a time when, as his friend Mark Twain wrote, “it was neither very creditable nor very safe to hold such a creed.”

You can read the rest here:

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/opinion/guest_perspectives/burlingame-the-man-not-the-city-deserves-a-closer-look/article_cd5c6cf8-44c1-11eb-abda-f720385c089d.html

[Cathy Baylock]

Thank you for posting this great piece from the SM Daily Journal. Here is a similar piece published recently by the Kansas City Star: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/community/joco-913/joco-opinion/article247294529.html?fbclid=IwAR0x8mhC1Xhgj6FjNarQQ326cPjUMBa26bRLNx1W0Kj8YREfNGe1EESyIb4

[Joe]

It was a 6-1 vote up in EssEFF:

Washington and Lincoln are out. S.F. school board tosses 44 school names in controversial move

Critics called the process slapdash, with little to no input from historians and a lack of information on the basis for each recommendation. In one instance, the committee didn’t know whether Roosevelt Middle School was named after Theodore or Franklin Delano.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Washington-and-Lincoln-are-out-S-F-school-board-15900963.php
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If we had the same sort of clowns in B'game, only Franklin would stay. No Hoover, McKinley, Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt.

[Joe]

Come on UC and the city of Berkeley--time to put your money where your mouths are:

As Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, takes steps to expunge the name “Berkeley” from its central library, officials at UC Berkeley are confronting the painful legacy behind the moniker — but say they have no plans to drop it.

“We acknowledge that the university’s founders chose to name their new town and campus after an individual whose views warrant no honor or commemoration,” university spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in a statement, referring to George Berkeley’s history as a slaveholder with an ill-fated plan to force Native American children into Christianity.

To some branding experts, the hard costs of a name change — websites, stationery, books, libraries, tests, degrees — would pale in comparison to the incalculable cost of conveying a new brand identity to people across the world, for whom “Berkeley” is synonymous with academics.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/uc-berkeley-name-change-18086129.php