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No, just 7 pages of griping about a business decision made to reflect the changing times.
If that’s all it is to you, then I’m not sure why you’d bother with it. As someone with a strong connection to the area and who’s interested in issues surrounding race and gentrification and everything else bundled up in this discussion, I find the subject fascinating. It may just be a shopping center name change, but it’s part of a ongoing trend and there will be ripple effects. Obviously that won’t interest everyone.
It interests me a great deal for the reasons you mentioned and for additional ones. I was pointing out that the disapproval has a tone of someone or something having been wronged in a greater sense. What has actually happened is that a capitalist enterprise has carefully studied the issue and has determined that the name change was in their best interests going forward. The times are moving on, and being offended and outraged at the feeling that SOMEONE is taking SOMETHING away from US is not going to change that.
So if Regency decided they wanted to change the name of one of their shopping centers because they found the current name to be unacceptable and/or a liability, who should have stopped them?
Someone in marketing should have stopped the choice. Village District is terrible.
The City annexed the Oberlin community but provided very few City services (water, sewer, etc). Of course, Oberlin was not the only African-American neighborhood to be treated that way. In general the City conspired with banks and developers to redline those neighborhoods and keep them second-class areas.
When the City authorized construction of Cameron Village (oops, the Village District) the streets around Oberlin were redesigned. In the process the Oberlin community was split and some of the homes were taken by eminent domain. You can bet that no white folks' homes were taken in that project. Same story when Wade Ave as we know it today was built in the mid-1960s. (Residents of Hayti in Durham had the same thing happen to them when the Durham Freeway was built.)
Then the City began to rezone parts of the community as O&I, with little or no input from the residential land owners. In some respects, Oberlin was one of the first Raleigh neighborhoods to be gentrified -- although nobody thought of it that way back then, and certainly nobody in power was concerned about the impact on the African-American property owners. It's my understanding that only four houses and two churches have been designed Raleigh Historic Landmarks. Heck, if this was Mordecai (from which black folks were essentially ejected) there would be a zoning overlay and the whole area would have been declared historic. Nor has the City has shown interest in resolving the issues around the 3-acre Oberlin cemetery.
God, when and if Sir Walter’s private life gets brought up, I hope it’s not renamed The City. I got a flashforwad blip into a future I don’t want to see happen.
That’s pretty much the long and short of it. Regency was certainly within their rights to rename for whatever reason they wanted. I do think renaming can be a bit of an empty gesture and a distraction, and sanitizing isn’t always the best choice, so it’ll be interesting to see how far it goes in that area. I’m not worried about Raleigh becoming The City though.
At least the Cowboy from The Village People was a Raleigh boy. Born here and attended Enloe. Randy Jones.
That's a good insight, and ironic to me as I feel that Raleigh is quite homophobic, more than any other city I can think of.
And Armistead Maupin, author of the famous "Tales of the City" about San Francisco's LGBT life preceding somewhat public acceptance, is also from Raleigh.
As is the Dexter actor who played a gay lead character on "Six Feet Under".
Another awful name is the tower planned at Union Station which sounds too much like Union Square in NYC:
God, when and if Sir Walter’s private life gets brought up, I hope it’s not renamed The City. I got a flashforwad blip into a future I don’t want to see happen.
I think some renaming is justified, but persecuting people for their actions that were considered normal and acceptable in their day is getting out of hand.
Obama, Bill Clinton and most everyone was against same-sex marriage just 15 years ago.
Are they going to be stripped of their medals in the near future?
I don't agree or condone salve ownership in any form, just as I would fight against women being treated as property.
But who knows if they had evil intentions back then? Perhpas indentured servants worked to pay off a sum of money and then they were free to go, almost like it being a regular job.
Isn't everything in America named after those who stole the land from Native Americans through acts of evil and murder and selfish behavior?
The shopping center should be named after the land's original inhabitants.
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