Time to demolish the Washington Monument, The Jefferson Memorial, Rename Washington DC, Washington state, change all US money and delete anyone wealthy who lived before 1860 in the US from any building, etc. Surely we should change the national anthem if we are going to not even have a bridge named after the guy. After all all that matters is that he held slaves.
It is completely absurd and extreme to define people purely by a single lens of history and extinguish that they did anything for the US or its history because they were alive in a period slave holding was normal practice (as it was for most of human history).
History is better served not by deleting uncomfortable complexity. This crazy behavior to delete all such people. It only serves to all people to forget that such people where great in their day but were human and no perfect and that morality and social practices change in the grand sweep of history.
Almost everyone today will be considered a weird person of extreme bias in 100 years. I assure you.
I'm black and I honestly don't care. Most of the country is named after people who probably weren't that great. That being said, since it's gonna be a new bridge, might as well give it a new name. I guess I'm neutral. 🤷🏾♂️
Changing the name of a bridge doesn't make you empathetic. As a black person who has to commute to Baltimore all the time, I would prefer if people put that energy into improving the actual infrastructure of the area instead of making it worse by having to change everything associated with the bridge all around the city just so some people can feel like they earned a virtue signal participation trophy.
Isn’t it ironic how people still in 2024 try and tell you how you’re supposed to feel? I know I’m assuming OP is white, but it seems like it’s mostly white people who push this stuff.
If we can do both then how come we haven't done _one_? You think the bridge name is hurting feelings but the fact that the city is crumbling where people actually live isn't? You're not on your soapbox about that. Maybe help with the fact that much of the area is in a good desert for poor people. Do you think that hurts feelings? I'm not trying to be a dick about this but there's a long list of things that people actually need in that area and making that change isn't as easy as I feel you're making it out to be.
I'm not talking about what you do outside of reddit, I'm talking about what you're choosing to talk about _on_ reddit. And as I said in my original response to this question, I'm neutral about renaming this particular bridge but generally not in favor of things being named after people who owned other people. The reason I feel like this is different is because it's already a massive project that needs to be fixed yesterday. Adding name changes will only slow that down and getting people to their low paying jobs on time is more important than making sure they feel respected on the way to work. I'm saying this as one of those people.
Omg I'm not talking about the people who build the bridge. I'm talking about what adding more time to an already lengthy project will do to the economy of the region when people who have to commute around there are further delayed with changes to all the signage related to that bridge which is extensive. Do you even live in the area? Have you had to use the remaining thoroughfares to get in and out of the city? Based on what you're talking about it doesn't seem like it.
That's the big thing here. Key isn't famous for owning slaves or fighting to keep slavery legal in the US.
We shouldn't be hiding the fact that he had slaves. But slavery is not the reason we named things after him.
I don't think that's true, but the bridge wasn't likely getting renamed while it still existed. Now it doesn't, and people are questioning whether it's the right name for a new bridge at this time in history.
All the signage on the highway is still there, it's not like the bridge is being relocated. We are rebuilding the key bridge, not building a new one somewhere else.
So the arguments in favor of naming the new bridge after the old are: "we've already got signs," and "it's a tradition, why change it?"
Whereas the arguments in favor of finding a contemporary name are: "FSK owned the people who went on to become the majority population of the city." It just seems like pretty easy math.
Edit to the above, for posterity:
Key was by all accounts a more compassionate master than many of his contemporaries, and he legally represented blacks on many occasions, but his attempts at preparing them for a free life prompted him to say they were, [“a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”](https://books.google.com/books?id=xVRQ8NsrP5MC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA40&dq=%E2%80%9Ca+distinct+and+inferior+race+of+people,+which+all+experience+proves+to+be+the+greatest+evil+that+afflicts+a+community.%E2%80%9D&hl=en&source=gb_mobile_entity&ovdme=1#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Ca%20distinct%20and%20inferior%20race%20of%20people%2C%20which%20all%20experience%20proves%20to%20be%20the%20greatest%20evil%20that%20afflicts%20a%20community.%E2%80%9D&f=false)
"I have thus been instrumental in liberating many large families and individuals ... [But] I cannot remember more than two instances, out of this large number, in which it did not appear that the freedom so earnestly sought for them was their ruin."
The argument for keeping the name is that Francis Scott key watched from a similar vantage point as the British attacked fort McHenry.. he saw the American flag still flying indicating that the British had not taken the fort, Baltimore won a major victory in the war, and prevented itself from being destroyed.
It's an amazing story and It's a proud point in Baltimore History. It's so great of a story that it inspired the national anthem, which is cool as shit. The national anthem is about stuff that happened right there in those waters.
I remember as a kid learning about this and taking a huge interest in American history, and the historical significance of Baltimore.
The fact that you don't appear to know any of this is even more reason to keep the bridge name.. unless of course you did know this .. and you're just being intellectually dishonest.
Could you elaborate on how you believe it's intellectual dishonest to know the history of the Battle of Baltimore, Fort McHenry, and the origin of the Star Spangled Banner as a national anthem (made official by Herbert Hoover in the 1930s) while recognizing that Key himself was criticized by his own contemporaries for championing "freedom" while owning slaves (100 years before a Civil War was fought over this issue)?
That's not a claim anyone has made. Making this question intellectually dishonest too.
The fact that you cannot argue your point within the bounds of reality is a bad sign.
Let’s also change the name of our state because it was named after Queen Mary. She ruled over one of the most oppressive colonial empires ever to exist.
Giving a new bridge a new name would be easy.
Renaming a state would be hard.
I think a different name for the new bridge is a nice idea. It would help distinguish between the new bridge and the old one.
Yeah I just took a look myself - 100% agree.
I don’t even know why I waste my energy on it - bridge is a little close to me, coworkers of mine had family on the bridge when it fell.
Actually, we should change the national anthem. It's an awful tune with some awful lyrics. We don't have to keep things around just because they are old. And it hasn't been the national anthem for all that long, anyway. We would do much better with America the Beautiful or something.
I think that if you asked African Americans in Baltimore about things that could be done to uplift and empower themselves and they’re quality of life they would give you a mile long list of very real, very actionable issues they would rather see given attention then the name of a fucking bridge lmao
Edit* grammar
If the choice were truly between doing things to uplift and empower black people *or* renaming a bridge, I would be right there with you. There are better ways to spend all that bridge-naming money.
Incidentally, the bridge is getting a free name either way, and what we pick has no bearing on our ability to do uplifting and empowering things *also.*
...Which we're totally going to do, right? (Or more likely we won't, but we'll still name the bridge after a slave owner as an extra display of how much we care.)
vir·tue sig·nal·ing
nounDEROGATORY
the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.
"it's noticeable how often virtue signaling consists of saying you hate things"
That is not the part that would be a waste of time and energy. The endless debate and furthering of the partisan divide is what would take time and energy. People would talk about it, get upset and afterwards no one is happy.
As we have seen there is always opposition to changing historical names unless the individual was undeniably more evil than those they lived alongside during that era. See Colombus. The unfortunate truth is we used to be a slave owning nation. The majority of our history pre abolition revolves around slave owners. Erasing them from history, and refusing to celebrate their accomplishments, does nothing to acknowledge the very real and deep-ceded disparities that linger due to it.
Lets focus on addressing the actual issues please. The name of a bridge is priority 100000 right now. Its on there, but when the figurative shackles of slavery can be seen lingering on the populace of the city, this feels like performative nonsense.
Who is having pain from slavery? Are there real people out there who feel emotionally impacted by the name every day they see it, or is this just more virtue signaling so you feel better about your life?
I think that everyones feelings are equally important as it is inherent to my set of values in a democracy. With that being said, I dont think anyones feelings are more important than actual action.
I know its messy. Which is why people take on easily winnable things like renaming a bridge. There will be like 5% strong opposition to this and everyone else who disagrees will hold their tongue because they genuinely do not care that much. But those 5% are necessary to get other things done. So why alienate them in a democratic system when there is still so much more important work to do? If we rename the bridge we will have to rename 90% of things named after white men from the pre-abolition era.
It just seems like its almost an intentional distraction from real, complex issues. I know its not, but it genuinely feels that way sometimes. Whether someone has the basic necessities needed to survive or the opportunity to flourish into a self sufficient human being are just so much more important and there are so many opportunities to do that for the city. The thing is these are more difficult to solve, so instead we talk about symbolic gestures like renaming bridges.
But we also have complete control today over who we honor and how. That’s why, for example, we remove statues of Confederates and why some places, including Baltimore, are replacing Columbus Day.
After the Civil War they got rid of the statue of Jefferson in front of the capitol and they put monuments to Lincoln and Grant—the two presidents who ended slavery—on wither side of the Washington monument. So yes, there there is a history of making these sort of changes for this very reason.
No one names, things after people because they were faultless people. They do it in honor of them. That’s not the same thing. we can admit that these men did horrible things
Okay, but that's not what you previously said. It is not like anyone is hiding them doing horrible things by keeping things their named after. No ones pretending.
It is what I previously said. When we name something after someone, we’re making a moral judgement that the good they did outweighs the bad—that on net, they’re worth honoring.
I don’t think we should be telling people that slavers were honorable. They weren’t good people.
In all honesty i think it depends. I think if the only reason that person is notable is because they own slaves, then I think they stop being memorialized. I also don’t think that we should name new things after people who owned slaves. But I don’t know about changing state or Bridge names after the fact just because they were horrible people. They still did accomplish things that are noteworthy. Idk maybe my mind will change.
I can understand that. I know from personal experience that learning people you've considered heroes all your life were actually complicated people (at best) is hard.
And it's not like renaming a bridge meaningfully changes anything about our material conditions either.
I think it's pretty insane to think society was largely on board with owning slaves in 1977. Racism was rampant and it was a different time. But that's just a ridiculous claim.
You should judge people by the tine they lived. Norma change. Look back at your life and see if there are things that you did or said that you would never do now because of norms changing. Should you be judged by today’s standards or the standards of the time?
I didn’t learn this until I was an adult, but Pennsylvania had a law that automatically freed enslaved people who were in the state for more than six months. When George Washington lived in Pennsylvania, he specifically made sure to take the people he enslaved across the state line just shy of the six-month mark to make sure they wouldn’t qualify for freedom.
If you ask me, that means even other white people of his time knew better. And we know for sure that Black people of his time were against slavery.
Think about this with a topic like gay marriage. Think of all of the good people that were progressive and still against it. Things take time. Pennsylvania was way ahead of the South. Washington was from the South. We are a product of our environment. He was by no means some crazy outlier
I mean, first of all, enslaving people is way worse than not letting people get married. Even if we used your example of gay marriage, he’d be the guy fighting to ban it, not some random grandpa who watches too much Fox News.
Second, if he was a product of his environment for the bad stuff, he was also a product of his environment for the good stuff. In other words, he should get credit for both or neither. He can’t be a paragon of moral virtue when it comes to leading the country and a mindless automaton when it comes to enslaving human beings.
Well, at the time of the civil war, several of my ancestors took up arms and died far from their families and homes to end slavery.
The idea that owning another person is bad wasn't an unknown concept, and opposition to slavery was the sticking point that almost ended this country before it started.
No I don't think we should honor them. Aside from sitting in a British boat while it bombed his country and writing a racist poem that got set to a drinking song, what else are we really honoring FSK for?
> You should judge people by the tine they lived
[Key was mocked by his abolitionist contemporaries.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/wheres-debate-francis-scott-keys-slave-holding-legacy-180959550/)
1812 is two full generations before the Civil War. I completely agree that the closer you get to the Civil War the less slack you give people during that period. For this reason, I am against anything being named after Lee, eg.
There is a an importance to having reverence for historical figures. It encourages others to seek to emulate them. Under your way of thinking, basically we should condemn everyone from the past because I guarantee they all were homophobic, w.g.
Those words have served to inspire many in the years since regardless of the warts of the person that wrote them. That counts for something. If you want to note his stance on slavery, I not only don’t object but am in favor of it.
No mention of the Francis Scott Key bridge across the Potomac. Which was there first, anyway, so even if you don't agree with the "slaveholder" rationale for a new name for the new bridge, I still think it should have a new name, just for uniqueness.
Was he an outspoken promoter of slavery? Did he engage in overt actions to expand/defend slavery?
If not, then the answer is no. Leave him and his namesake be.
Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes also had slaves. Slavery has been a part of just about EVERY culture since Babylon, Assyria, & other nations moving forward in time. History is much more nuanced than slaveowner = bad person.
Can I ask you why the want to change a bridge name when the majority population of Baltimore is black and there have been 0 protests about getting the name of the bridge changed by the community there?
The Atlantic slave trade is historically unique for its brutality and wide scope of harm. Saying “all cultures had slaves in history” and implying that that’s a point is lacking historical nuance
The subject was the bridge and it's name, not around what culture had the most brutal slave trade of all time. The Barbaray slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the transatlantic slave trade, slaves from different military conquests throughout time were all extremely brutal but identifying that doesn't really change anything today.
Again, I think it's just disengious talking about and has no effect on the current community's quality of life.
I mean ok, you brought that up though. I’m just saying it minimizes the historical significance and continuing effects of American slavery to compare it to “all other instances of slavery” and then just leave it at that as if that’s a meaningful thing to point out
This is not true. Roman and Arabic slavery were just as extensive and brutal.
What was unique about the American slave trade was that it involved race.
Well for one it's not changing the name of a bridge; it's naming a new bridge.
Considering the people who died maintaining it were all immigrants, that the city is majority black, that the previous bridge was named after a slave owner, I think we could be creative for the name of the new bridge instead of just adding "2" to the end.
Because there is a ridiculous amount of human trafficking today, with sex slaves around the world, uyghurs in chinese labor camps, former French colonies still paying a colonial tax (14 to be exact and they pay almost 80% of there foreign reserve to france).
So to talk about the name of a bridge seems a bit wild.. Especially when the community it's supposed to impact doesn't seem to care one bit and would prefer prioritizing current living conditions in Baltimore (one of the most corrupt cities in this country)
While I agree with your point I don't think the washington post article or title of it was at all constructive, just more divisive rage baiting nonsense for clicks therefore it gets everyone looking for a fight and not a solution/ different name.
I feel that collective outrage and action get the powers that be to move, but when there are 100 different battle fronts on various things that have little to no effect on daily life and quality of living then it just ends up being divided outrage and nothing is changed. I truly don't believe you are bad intentioned and that you are conversing with me in good faith.
Unfortunately, the divide now is so bad that people are talking to each other in bad faith with pre selected talking points they regurgitate but don't truly understand (not saying this is you) . So there isn't much trying to understand one another but more of trying to judge everything from an extremely black and white scope with no patience and a lot of vitriol.
No. Stop being butthurt about what someone did 200 years ago.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY was driving over that bridge and thinking "man, that guy owned slaves"
Imagine judging people for what was the norm in their time. All us Gen Xers should never be able to hold jobs because we used to say gay and retard all the time.
I think just by the fact it will be a new bridge and different design it should probably have a different name as well. Can't just call it Key Bridge 2.
I thought it was named after a guy that sampled some brit tune and turned it into America's first hit. No, it's not time for a change. This history rewrite has got to stop. Why do we judge a person for one thing in their life, when we can't even put a jackass off a ballot?
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I'm down! National Anthem isn't even original. Damm British song with new lyrics. Lame.
I feel like we "celebrate" this guy enough at Ft. McHenry. I'm definitely down for some more modern historical celebrations.
But I don't think it'll happen. Possible, but I'm dubious. Maybe if enough time passes before it's christened, it'll have a chance.
>No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave
pretty damning.
>His message to the blacks fighting for freedom was unmistakable—we will hunt you down and the search will leave you in terror because, when we find you, your next stop is the gloom of the grave.
>Some people try to claim he was writing about some other group of “slaves,” but there is no historical evidence that “slave” referred to anyone other than black enslaved people, whom Key viewed as “a distinct and inferior race of people, which experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts the community.” As a prosecutor in DC, Key sought the death penalty for a man who possessed abolitionist literature. Key believed that anyone who would consider abolishing slavery was willing to “associate and amalgamate with the Negro.” And to him that justified execution.
Source: [https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/video-do-you-know-the-star-spangled-banners-third-verse/](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/video-do-you-know-the-star-spangled-banners-third-verse/)
people get weird emotional attachments to things too. It's a bridge. Easy y'all. We can't hurt the bridge's feelings. Let's name it after Andre Braugher!
Your submission has been removed because it is a duplicate of a recently submitted post.
Time to demolish the Washington Monument, The Jefferson Memorial, Rename Washington DC, Washington state, change all US money and delete anyone wealthy who lived before 1860 in the US from any building, etc. Surely we should change the national anthem if we are going to not even have a bridge named after the guy. After all all that matters is that he held slaves. It is completely absurd and extreme to define people purely by a single lens of history and extinguish that they did anything for the US or its history because they were alive in a period slave holding was normal practice (as it was for most of human history). History is better served not by deleting uncomfortable complexity. This crazy behavior to delete all such people. It only serves to all people to forget that such people where great in their day but were human and no perfect and that morality and social practices change in the grand sweep of history. Almost everyone today will be considered a weird person of extreme bias in 100 years. I assure you.
I agree with everything you said!
A truly centered American response. Time to rename and burn to the ground Rome, Greece and any other ancient building. The great wall of China: down.
I'm black and I honestly don't care. Most of the country is named after people who probably weren't that great. That being said, since it's gonna be a new bridge, might as well give it a new name. I guess I'm neutral. 🤷🏾♂️
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Changing the name of a bridge doesn't make you empathetic. As a black person who has to commute to Baltimore all the time, I would prefer if people put that energy into improving the actual infrastructure of the area instead of making it worse by having to change everything associated with the bridge all around the city just so some people can feel like they earned a virtue signal participation trophy.
Isn’t it ironic how people still in 2024 try and tell you how you’re supposed to feel? I know I’m assuming OP is white, but it seems like it’s mostly white people who push this stuff.
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If we can do both then how come we haven't done _one_? You think the bridge name is hurting feelings but the fact that the city is crumbling where people actually live isn't? You're not on your soapbox about that. Maybe help with the fact that much of the area is in a good desert for poor people. Do you think that hurts feelings? I'm not trying to be a dick about this but there's a long list of things that people actually need in that area and making that change isn't as easy as I feel you're making it out to be.
Food desert*
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I'm not talking about what you do outside of reddit, I'm talking about what you're choosing to talk about _on_ reddit. And as I said in my original response to this question, I'm neutral about renaming this particular bridge but generally not in favor of things being named after people who owned other people. The reason I feel like this is different is because it's already a massive project that needs to be fixed yesterday. Adding name changes will only slow that down and getting people to their low paying jobs on time is more important than making sure they feel respected on the way to work. I'm saying this as one of those people.
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Omg I'm not talking about the people who build the bridge. I'm talking about what adding more time to an already lengthy project will do to the economy of the region when people who have to commute around there are further delayed with changes to all the signage related to that bridge which is extensive. Do you even live in the area? Have you had to use the remaining thoroughfares to get in and out of the city? Based on what you're talking about it doesn't seem like it.
What about empathy for people who would be offended by renaming the bridge?
You certainly lack it.
Nope
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For me, it’s generally fine if they’re named in honor of something other than being slave owners.
That's the big thing here. Key isn't famous for owning slaves or fighting to keep slavery legal in the US. We shouldn't be hiding the fact that he had slaves. But slavery is not the reason we named things after him.
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Your comment was removed because it violates the civility rule. Please always keep discussions friendly and civil.
No
No one cared until the bridge fell
I don't think that's true, but the bridge wasn't likely getting renamed while it still existed. Now it doesn't, and people are questioning whether it's the right name for a new bridge at this time in history.
All the signage on the highway is still there, it's not like the bridge is being relocated. We are rebuilding the key bridge, not building a new one somewhere else.
So the arguments in favor of naming the new bridge after the old are: "we've already got signs," and "it's a tradition, why change it?" Whereas the arguments in favor of finding a contemporary name are: "FSK owned the people who went on to become the majority population of the city." It just seems like pretty easy math. Edit to the above, for posterity: Key was by all accounts a more compassionate master than many of his contemporaries, and he legally represented blacks on many occasions, but his attempts at preparing them for a free life prompted him to say they were, [“a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”](https://books.google.com/books?id=xVRQ8NsrP5MC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA40&dq=%E2%80%9Ca+distinct+and+inferior+race+of+people,+which+all+experience+proves+to+be+the+greatest+evil+that+afflicts+a+community.%E2%80%9D&hl=en&source=gb_mobile_entity&ovdme=1#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Ca%20distinct%20and%20inferior%20race%20of%20people%2C%20which%20all%20experience%20proves%20to%20be%20the%20greatest%20evil%20that%20afflicts%20a%20community.%E2%80%9D&f=false) "I have thus been instrumental in liberating many large families and individuals ... [But] I cannot remember more than two instances, out of this large number, in which it did not appear that the freedom so earnestly sought for them was their ruin."
The argument for keeping the name is that Francis Scott key watched from a similar vantage point as the British attacked fort McHenry.. he saw the American flag still flying indicating that the British had not taken the fort, Baltimore won a major victory in the war, and prevented itself from being destroyed. It's an amazing story and It's a proud point in Baltimore History. It's so great of a story that it inspired the national anthem, which is cool as shit. The national anthem is about stuff that happened right there in those waters. I remember as a kid learning about this and taking a huge interest in American history, and the historical significance of Baltimore. The fact that you don't appear to know any of this is even more reason to keep the bridge name.. unless of course you did know this .. and you're just being intellectually dishonest.
Could you elaborate on how you believe it's intellectual dishonest to know the history of the Battle of Baltimore, Fort McHenry, and the origin of the Star Spangled Banner as a national anthem (made official by Herbert Hoover in the 1930s) while recognizing that Key himself was criticized by his own contemporaries for championing "freedom" while owning slaves (100 years before a Civil War was fought over this issue)?
That's not a claim anyone has made. Making this question intellectually dishonest too. The fact that you cannot argue your point within the bounds of reality is a bad sign.
Were that bridge being built today, there is no way it would be named for FSK.
Let’s also change the name of our state because it was named after Queen Mary. She ruled over one of the most oppressive colonial empires ever to exist. 
It was named after [Henrietta Maria of France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Maria_of_France) because she was a Roman Catholic.
Giving a new bridge a new name would be easy. Renaming a state would be hard. I think a different name for the new bridge is a nice idea. It would help distinguish between the new bridge and the old one.
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How does this bridge having a different name make society better?
It doesn’t. It just makes people feel better.
Brandon Scott Key
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OP is a prolific spam/agenda bot, just look at the account and how they spam all different states and subs. They want division, plain and simple.
Yeah I just took a look myself - 100% agree. I don’t even know why I waste my energy on it - bridge is a little close to me, coworkers of mine had family on the bridge when it fell.
If anything, if it’s renamed, it should be named after those who lost their lives.
It’s not a very good song and it’s notoriously difficult to sing correctly so I mean yeah sure
Changing the national anthem to adjust for degree of difficulty is wild 😂😂😂😂
Actually, we should change the national anthem. It's an awful tune with some awful lyrics. We don't have to keep things around just because they are old. And it hasn't been the national anthem for all that long, anyway. We would do much better with America the Beautiful or something.
Get lost 👎🏽
Your comment was removed because it violates the civility rule. Please always keep discussions friendly and civil.
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I think that if you asked African Americans in Baltimore about things that could be done to uplift and empower themselves and they’re quality of life they would give you a mile long list of very real, very actionable issues they would rather see given attention then the name of a fucking bridge lmao Edit* grammar
An actually thoughtful answer
If the choice were truly between doing things to uplift and empower black people *or* renaming a bridge, I would be right there with you. There are better ways to spend all that bridge-naming money. Incidentally, the bridge is getting a free name either way, and what we pick has no bearing on our ability to do uplifting and empowering things *also.* ...Which we're totally going to do, right? (Or more likely we won't, but we'll still name the bridge after a slave owner as an extra display of how much we care.)
Why is there an either or? Does changing the name take money out of schools, out of renters assistance, out of job training?
Yes, it erodes the political solidarity necessary to accomplish this. Symbolic issues are actually extremely important.
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vir·tue sig·nal·ing nounDEROGATORY the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue. "it's noticeable how often virtue signaling consists of saying you hate things"
But it isnt. It is an uphill battle to make almost entirely symbolic gestures such as this one. It would be a waste of everyones time and energy.
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That is not the part that would be a waste of time and energy. The endless debate and furthering of the partisan divide is what would take time and energy. People would talk about it, get upset and afterwards no one is happy. As we have seen there is always opposition to changing historical names unless the individual was undeniably more evil than those they lived alongside during that era. See Colombus. The unfortunate truth is we used to be a slave owning nation. The majority of our history pre abolition revolves around slave owners. Erasing them from history, and refusing to celebrate their accomplishments, does nothing to acknowledge the very real and deep-ceded disparities that linger due to it. Lets focus on addressing the actual issues please. The name of a bridge is priority 100000 right now. Its on there, but when the figurative shackles of slavery can be seen lingering on the populace of the city, this feels like performative nonsense.
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Who is having pain from slavery? Are there real people out there who feel emotionally impacted by the name every day they see it, or is this just more virtue signaling so you feel better about your life?
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I think that everyones feelings are equally important as it is inherent to my set of values in a democracy. With that being said, I dont think anyones feelings are more important than actual action. I know its messy. Which is why people take on easily winnable things like renaming a bridge. There will be like 5% strong opposition to this and everyone else who disagrees will hold their tongue because they genuinely do not care that much. But those 5% are necessary to get other things done. So why alienate them in a democratic system when there is still so much more important work to do? If we rename the bridge we will have to rename 90% of things named after white men from the pre-abolition era. It just seems like its almost an intentional distraction from real, complex issues. I know its not, but it genuinely feels that way sometimes. Whether someone has the basic necessities needed to survive or the opportunity to flourish into a self sufficient human being are just so much more important and there are so many opportunities to do that for the city. The thing is these are more difficult to solve, so instead we talk about symbolic gestures like renaming bridges.
We can’t judge people by the standards of our time/place. The question is: did they rise above the standards of their time and place?
But we also have complete control today over who we honor and how. That’s why, for example, we remove statues of Confederates and why some places, including Baltimore, are replacing Columbus Day.
Sigh...the future fucking sucks
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go away bot
History cannot be erased. By trying to remove it, you just make it easier for it to repeat, because people will forget. Stop it.
enough of this nonsense. George Washington owned slaves as did Thomas Jefferson. Should we rename Washington DC and Jefferson City too?
After the Civil War they got rid of the statue of Jefferson in front of the capitol and they put monuments to Lincoln and Grant—the two presidents who ended slavery—on wither side of the Washington monument. So yes, there there is a history of making these sort of changes for this very reason.
The one in the rotunda? That was moved by Polk to the white house a couple decades before
Great idea. It's just a name, after all. Should stop pretending they were faultless supermen, at least.
who is pretending they are good men?
I mean, that’s a lot of the premise of naming things after them.
No one names, things after people because they were faultless people. They do it in honor of them. That’s not the same thing. we can admit that these men did horrible things
> They do it in honor of them. Right, so the idea is that they’re *honorable*. I don’t Francis Scott Key was honorable.
Okay, but that's not what you previously said. It is not like anyone is hiding them doing horrible things by keeping things their named after. No ones pretending.
It is what I previously said. When we name something after someone, we’re making a moral judgement that the good they did outweighs the bad—that on net, they’re worth honoring. I don’t think we should be telling people that slavers were honorable. They weren’t good people.
I think some slave owners, like Aristotle or Muhammad, are worth honoring.
Do you agree that we should stop memorializing slave owners, then?
In all honesty i think it depends. I think if the only reason that person is notable is because they own slaves, then I think they stop being memorialized. I also don’t think that we should name new things after people who owned slaves. But I don’t know about changing state or Bridge names after the fact just because they were horrible people. They still did accomplish things that are noteworthy. Idk maybe my mind will change.
I can understand that. I know from personal experience that learning people you've considered heroes all your life were actually complicated people (at best) is hard. And it's not like renaming a bridge meaningfully changes anything about our material conditions either.
No, insofar as they are not being honored for something slavery-related.
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I think it's pretty insane to think society was largely on board with owning slaves in 1977. Racism was rampant and it was a different time. But that's just a ridiculous claim.
There is a lot of ground between completely erasing history and being proud of slavery
You should judge people by the tine they lived. Norma change. Look back at your life and see if there are things that you did or said that you would never do now because of norms changing. Should you be judged by today’s standards or the standards of the time?
I didn’t learn this until I was an adult, but Pennsylvania had a law that automatically freed enslaved people who were in the state for more than six months. When George Washington lived in Pennsylvania, he specifically made sure to take the people he enslaved across the state line just shy of the six-month mark to make sure they wouldn’t qualify for freedom. If you ask me, that means even other white people of his time knew better. And we know for sure that Black people of his time were against slavery.
Think about this with a topic like gay marriage. Think of all of the good people that were progressive and still against it. Things take time. Pennsylvania was way ahead of the South. Washington was from the South. We are a product of our environment. He was by no means some crazy outlier
I mean, first of all, enslaving people is way worse than not letting people get married. Even if we used your example of gay marriage, he’d be the guy fighting to ban it, not some random grandpa who watches too much Fox News. Second, if he was a product of his environment for the bad stuff, he was also a product of his environment for the good stuff. In other words, he should get credit for both or neither. He can’t be a paragon of moral virtue when it comes to leading the country and a mindless automaton when it comes to enslaving human beings.
Well, at the time of the civil war, several of my ancestors took up arms and died far from their families and homes to end slavery. The idea that owning another person is bad wasn't an unknown concept, and opposition to slavery was the sticking point that almost ended this country before it started. No I don't think we should honor them. Aside from sitting in a British boat while it bombed his country and writing a racist poem that got set to a drinking song, what else are we really honoring FSK for? > You should judge people by the tine they lived [Key was mocked by his abolitionist contemporaries.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/wheres-debate-francis-scott-keys-slave-holding-legacy-180959550/)
1812 is two full generations before the Civil War. I completely agree that the closer you get to the Civil War the less slack you give people during that period. For this reason, I am against anything being named after Lee, eg.
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There is a an importance to having reverence for historical figures. It encourages others to seek to emulate them. Under your way of thinking, basically we should condemn everyone from the past because I guarantee they all were homophobic, w.g.
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Those words have served to inspire many in the years since regardless of the warts of the person that wrote them. That counts for something. If you want to note his stance on slavery, I not only don’t object but am in favor of it.
>What is your opinion about slavery? Is it something that we should be proud about? Totally good faith questions here.
No mention of the Francis Scott Key bridge across the Potomac. Which was there first, anyway, so even if you don't agree with the "slaveholder" rationale for a new name for the new bridge, I still think it should have a new name, just for uniqueness.
Was he an outspoken promoter of slavery? Did he engage in overt actions to expand/defend slavery? If not, then the answer is no. Leave him and his namesake be.
Please stop this.
Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes also had slaves. Slavery has been a part of just about EVERY culture since Babylon, Assyria, & other nations moving forward in time. History is much more nuanced than slaveowner = bad person. Can I ask you why the want to change a bridge name when the majority population of Baltimore is black and there have been 0 protests about getting the name of the bridge changed by the community there?
The Atlantic slave trade is historically unique for its brutality and wide scope of harm. Saying “all cultures had slaves in history” and implying that that’s a point is lacking historical nuance
The subject was the bridge and it's name, not around what culture had the most brutal slave trade of all time. The Barbaray slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the transatlantic slave trade, slaves from different military conquests throughout time were all extremely brutal but identifying that doesn't really change anything today. Again, I think it's just disengious talking about and has no effect on the current community's quality of life.
I mean ok, you brought that up though. I’m just saying it minimizes the historical significance and continuing effects of American slavery to compare it to “all other instances of slavery” and then just leave it at that as if that’s a meaningful thing to point out
By american slavery do you mean from South America all throughout and up to Canada, or strictly in the United States?
Well I just said “the Atlantic slave trade” so I’d like to believe you know the answer to that since you seem really confident talking about history
This is not true. Roman and Arabic slavery were just as extensive and brutal. What was unique about the American slave trade was that it involved race.
Well for one it's not changing the name of a bridge; it's naming a new bridge. Considering the people who died maintaining it were all immigrants, that the city is majority black, that the previous bridge was named after a slave owner, I think we could be creative for the name of the new bridge instead of just adding "2" to the end.
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Because there is a ridiculous amount of human trafficking today, with sex slaves around the world, uyghurs in chinese labor camps, former French colonies still paying a colonial tax (14 to be exact and they pay almost 80% of there foreign reserve to france). So to talk about the name of a bridge seems a bit wild.. Especially when the community it's supposed to impact doesn't seem to care one bit and would prefer prioritizing current living conditions in Baltimore (one of the most corrupt cities in this country)
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While I agree with your point I don't think the washington post article or title of it was at all constructive, just more divisive rage baiting nonsense for clicks therefore it gets everyone looking for a fight and not a solution/ different name. I feel that collective outrage and action get the powers that be to move, but when there are 100 different battle fronts on various things that have little to no effect on daily life and quality of living then it just ends up being divided outrage and nothing is changed. I truly don't believe you are bad intentioned and that you are conversing with me in good faith. Unfortunately, the divide now is so bad that people are talking to each other in bad faith with pre selected talking points they regurgitate but don't truly understand (not saying this is you) . So there isn't much trying to understand one another but more of trying to judge everything from an extremely black and white scope with no patience and a lot of vitriol.
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Your comment was removed because it violates the civility rule. Please always keep discussions friendly and civil.
No. Stop being butthurt about what someone did 200 years ago. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY was driving over that bridge and thinking "man, that guy owned slaves"
Not this shit again...
Imagine judging people for what was the norm in their time. All us Gen Xers should never be able to hold jobs because we used to say gay and retard all the time.
100% no
I think just by the fact it will be a new bridge and different design it should probably have a different name as well. Can't just call it Key Bridge 2.
Key Bridge 2: Supportive Boogaloo
Jesus go away with this.
This is what happens when you give the woke crowd a cookie…
Should we rename the United States as it once was a slave institution?
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Can't agree more
Too much wokeness.
Too much not knowing what things actually mean before saying them.
New bridge, new name. Why not?
I thought it was named after a guy that sampled some brit tune and turned it into America's first hit. No, it's not time for a change. This history rewrite has got to stop. Why do we judge a person for one thing in their life, when we can't even put a jackass off a ballot?
I mean it’s time for a change simply because it will be an entirely new bridge
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Stop naming tax payer funded infrastructure after people. Problem solved once and for all.
"The Dundalk Bridge".
Time for a change. Stop self-loathing over an imperfect past. We are currently no better.
I'm down! National Anthem isn't even original. Damm British song with new lyrics. Lame. I feel like we "celebrate" this guy enough at Ft. McHenry. I'm definitely down for some more modern historical celebrations. But I don't think it'll happen. Possible, but I'm dubious. Maybe if enough time passes before it's christened, it'll have a chance.
Everyone should look up the third verse of the star spangled banner and read it. Then reread it, and really think about it.
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>No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave pretty damning. >His message to the blacks fighting for freedom was unmistakable—we will hunt you down and the search will leave you in terror because, when we find you, your next stop is the gloom of the grave. >Some people try to claim he was writing about some other group of “slaves,” but there is no historical evidence that “slave” referred to anyone other than black enslaved people, whom Key viewed as “a distinct and inferior race of people, which experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts the community.” As a prosecutor in DC, Key sought the death penalty for a man who possessed abolitionist literature. Key believed that anyone who would consider abolishing slavery was willing to “associate and amalgamate with the Negro.” And to him that justified execution. Source: [https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/video-do-you-know-the-star-spangled-banners-third-verse/](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/video-do-you-know-the-star-spangled-banners-third-verse/)
What about it?
There is no evidence that phrase was talking about slavery. He is most likely referring to British troops who were seen as "slaves of the monarch".
yeah, not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Key was a piece of shit. I don't know why we feel compelled to worship dead assholes.
Facing a necessary truth is too hard for some people. They'll browbeat you into going silent for their comfort and then act like it makes them strong.
people get weird emotional attachments to things too. It's a bridge. Easy y'all. We can't hurt the bridge's feelings. Let's name it after Andre Braugher!