Lake Bde Maka Ska

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by Drewcifer

My main issue with Bde Maka Ska is that bde is a word that seems unpronounceable to those who haven't been taught to pronounce it. I think we should call it Lake Prince. Who would oppose?

People who have lost family members to drug addiction. What's Nar-Anon?

[Drewcifer]

Why does everything have to be a thing in this city?

[Kavalier]

Originally Posted by Drewcifer

Why does everything have to be a thing in this city?

Look at the City Council and you'll get the answer to that question.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by Drewcifer

Why does everything have to be a thing in this city?

Indeed. Why change the name at all? It’s an empty gesture whereby the perpetrators can signal their sympathies with two victim groups without all the muss and bother of an actual sacrifice or change. All very tidy.

[Drewcifer]

Originally Posted by Glenfield

Indeed. Why change the name at all? It’s an empty gesture whereby the perpetrators can signal their sympathies with two victim groups without all the muss and bother of an actual sacrifice or change. All very tidy.

This city is full of people who love to vote for Keith Ellison because it shows how tolerant they are but don't go to the SA at 24th and Lyndale because it is "too ghetto". White Minnesotans* love their symbolic politics way more than they like actual non white people.

*Not everyone

[Atalanta]

If this is true, looks like a bunch of wasted tax money
And a bunch of unneeded race blaming

Group Says Lake Calhoun Was Named After A Different Calhoun « WCCO | CBS Minnesota

Group Says Lake Calhoun Was Named After A Different Calhoun

— A group seeking to ensure that the name for Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis stays as-is claim that the lake wasn’t even named after the slavery supporter John C. Calhoun.

The group Save Lake Calhoun, instead, argued that articles from the archives of the Minneapolis Tribune — which was the name for the paper before a merger with the Minneapolis Star — indicate that the lake was named after a “Lieutenant Calhoun” with the U.S. Army.

The push to change the lake’s name to its Dakota name, Bde Maka Ska, has been working its way through civic bodies. Most recently, the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners voted 4-3 in favor of changing the lake’s name.


It’s a long process to change the popular Minneapolis lake’s official name, though. The next step for the name change will be a decision from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. After that, the decision will go to federal authorities.

Save Lake Calhoun’s advertisement says that Minnesotans have been “duped into an inflammatory and false narrative about Lake Calhoun,” and that “Lake Calhoun is the first victim of what will be a tsunami of extremist name-change advocacy.”

John C. Calhoun was a southern statesman and helped establish Fort Snelling. He died more than 160 years ago.

[rogead]

Removing a statue or monument that represents a dark part of our history should always be open for honest debate. However, making changes to a geographical location or feature is a silly exercise in abstract political correctness. The logical conclusion to this madness would require the renaming of states, cities, and counties across the country (Alexander Ramsey, as in Ramsey County, called for the extermination of The Dakota People).

Of course, this isn't unique to The United States. The city of St Petersburg in Russia has undergone three name changes in the last century--all of them ostensibly for political reasons.

The best way to deal with Lake Calhoun is to keep the name as it is, and to put up prominent signage explaining the native history of the lake and of the region.

[Lodestar]

Minnesota is chock full of beautiful Indian names for things. We have been guilty of an outrageous amount of cultural appropriation. Heh.


If you know the history of Ft. Snelling and the forced march and Indian internment there you wouldn't want any reminders of that place either.


But I agree with rogead's suggestion. It gets confusing for us older folks to keep changing the names of things and most of us might continue to use the names we're most familiar with among ourselves. The truth is I doubt one in a thousand of us remembers our history well enough to have thought of slavery every time we went to recreate at Lake Calhoun. Nor do I think it would be healthy for all of us to continuously look at our surroundings and their names by the most gruesome or unpleasant associations. We'd all go mad. Leave that to the people who make their livings promoting social change and they'll create enough ill will all by themselves.


I've actually become aware of a group that wants to destroy Ft. Ridgely because it was the site of the beginning of the Indian-American War here (Or whatever it's called now. I know it's no longer called the "Indian Uprising" but I'm probably several namings behind.)


Yes, please saturate us, citizens and visitors alike, with markers and signs of our history. It gives us opportunity to grieve, to give thanks for improvements, to remind us where we've been and don't want to go again. And the more accurate our knowledge of our mutual history is, the more accurate we can be in our decisions moving forward. Good idea. All of us can use more historical information.

[Grizzly Addams]

So lame.