HELP! Renaming Texas 'subtle racism' Route

This thread has been painful to read through, but sadly not surprising. Do you not see the disturbing truth that this entire thread is a group of white men discussing what is and isn't racist? We need to do a little less talking and more listening. This thread should be saved for posterity to verify the reality that climbers claim to be inclusive, but quickly become defensive when inequality is mentioned and bristle at taking real action to change. Our sport is direly lacking in representation by people of color. Many of our crags are in rural, conservative areas where white folks can move freely and blend in with the locals. This isn't the case with climbers of color. And then add the trauma of showing up at a crag and seeing a "subtley racist" route name. Renaming a route doesn't hurt anyone, but the name itself certainly can hurt people. I implore those of you joking about this to do a bit of self-analyzing and ask yourselves why you're comfortable turning this into a joke. We can all do better.

https://rockandice.com/climbing-news/kai-lightner-open-your-eyes-to-the-reality-of-black-lives/
https://www.powercompanyclimbing.com/blog/2020/6/25/ep-171-genevive-walker-black-voices-matter
Brown Girls Climb - A resource for white climbers

Hey D Graham, appreciate your dilemma...but...trivializing MLK’s name doesn’t seem like a good solution if the goal is to be inoffensive. Sorry for not having anything constructive to contribute. 

Mickwrote: Hey D Graham, appreciate your dilemma...but...trivializing MLK’s name doesn’t seem like a good solution if the goal is to be inoffensive. Sorry for not having anything constructive to contribute. 

aaaaand, there it is

Thanks B TK, D Graham is just trying to do the right thing. Hard, sometimes, to know what is and isn’t offensive these days. 

As a climber of color , this is silly. dont create problems out of nothing

Christopher Lunnwrote: As a climber of color , this is silly. dont create problems out of nothing

Aaannnd, there it is. Much ado about nothing, folks. 

Thanks for weighing in, Chris.

Chris Lunn, “As a climber of color” you characterize this issue as “silly” and you are able to do so without fear of being labeled a racist.

Were I to refer to you “as a climber of color” I would almost certainly be labeled a racist. Likewise if I were to characterize this racially sensitive conversation as ”silly”.

This is ridiculous.  If it’s not your route that you named originally, I wouldn’t take it upon myself to rename it - regardless of what MP is asking.  I’d ignore the email.  Let MP delete it if they have an issue.  

I got the same sort of request to change the name on one of my routes in the Sinks (Slave to History). It was from a woman in Colorado who believes it has racist connotations.  The reason for the original name (now renamed Ancient History on Fairfield Central) was that at the time we were driving our daughter all over Wyoming to History Day competitions in her 8th grade year and were feeling a bit like slaves to history day competitions. Well, I really can't get too upset about it so I changed the name, after all, the rock hasn't changed, I'm not a racist and I do think there is a long standing problem in this country with racism.  
So, yeah, I'll leave my ego out of it and do a little part to help the situation maybe get better.  What the hell, relax everyone, take a bigger view like the Dalai Lama says.

Mick,

The word "slave" is not racist. The act of slavery is. There is a difference.

Also, slave has more than one meaning. It's OK to have the word "slave" in a route name. Although I'm sure some would like to obliterate that word from our language.

Can I start a petition to rename all routes that have the word "abortion" in them? As a devout follower of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I believe we are all God's children and deserve to be given God's gift of life. I also heard they put aborted fetuses in vaccines, which is why I choose not to vaccinate my children. Maybe we can change the routes names to something along the lines of "Defund Planned Parenthood" or "Vaccines Cause Autism". As it stands now, all routes that oppose my political beliefs are offensive and I would like them to be changed.

Thank you and God Bless. I will pray for you.

Deuteronomy 23:1

Best,
RIP Tradiban

bob branscombwrote: I got the same sort of request to change the name on one of my routes in the Sinks (Slave to History). It was from a woman in Colorado who believes it has racist connotations.  The reason for the original name (now renamed Ancient History on Fairfield Central) was that at the time we were driving our daughter all over Wyoming to History Day competitions in her 8th grade year and were feeling a bit like slaves to history day competitions. Well, I really can't get too upset about it so I changed the name, after all, the rock hasn't changed, I'm not a racist and I do think there is a long standing problem in this country with racism.  
So, yeah, I'll leave my ego out of it and do a little part to help the situation maybe get better.  What the hell, relax everyone, take a bigger view like the Dalai Lama says.

The Dalai Lama teaches against the word of God which is blasphemy. It is also offensive to POC (Chinese) because it recognizes Tibet as a sovereign country. I have asked the Mods to delete and/or edit your comment to include a quote from a nondenominational leader as to not further offend me. 

Best,
RIP Tradiban

RIP Tradibanwrote: 

Can I start a petition to rename all routes that have the word "abortion" in them? As a devout follower of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I believe we are all God's children and deserve to be given God's gift of life. I also heard they put aborted fetuses in vaccines, which is why I choose not to vaccinate my children. Maybe we can change the routes names to something along the lines of "Defund Planned Parenthood" or "Vaccines Cause Autism". As it stands now, all routes that oppose my political beliefs are offensive and I would like them to be changed.

Thank you and God Bless. I will pray for you.

Deuteronomy 23:1

Best,
RIP Tradiban

Disgusting

RIP raises a good point here.   Maybe the simplest solution, going forward, is to just not allow 13 yr old boys with IQ’s below 50 and no sense of humor to name routes without running it past their moms first.  

Miss Catwrote:

Disgusting

I'm sure it would sound disgusting to a person who resides in Hell. You probably wear masks in public and believe in the "Coronavirus" too.

I will pray for you.

Best,
RIP Tradiban

Hey guys have you seen the George Floyd video? Or what people of color are actually saying about it, such as this, or this? Black people aren't a cohesive unit so there are of course some who are asking us to rename Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, but the vast majority aren't even talking about that--they're demanding that we stop letting cops harass, brutalize, unjustly arrest, and straight up fucking murder black people.

I'm white, but I think that's a pretty reasonable request, and I think any reasonable person of any color agrees. And while this problem does disproportionately affect black people, Daniel Shaver was white and that didn't save him. This isn't just a racism issue, it's also a flagrant abuse of power and lack of accountability issue that affects people of all colors.

So on the context of murder, I guess it's kind of you to want to rename the route, but just do it without the fanfare. This isn't the race conversation that is a priority, it's a distraction, and 20 years from now I don't want our generation's legacy to be that we renamed a few things and the cops went right back to murdering more Erik Garners, Michael Browns, Fred Hamptons. Let's keep the focus.

FrankPSwrote:

Aaannnd, there it is. Much ado about nothing, folks. 

Thanks for weighing in, Chris.

Okay... I’m a climber of color and I think removing shitty, racist names like this is important ( mountainproject.com/route/1…). I guess in your mind we’re back to square one?

POC can express our opinions without you interpreting us as being a representative of our entire race or ethnicity. Stop with this bullshit.

FrankPS wrote:

I realize no one person represents everyone. Did you find the route name Aunt Jamima offensive?

I’m not black but I could see why a black person might be offended by it. There is a lot of history around the Aunt Jemima character that I wasn’t aware of until recently ( google.com/amp/s/amp.kentuc…).

It just seems like a lot of people on here often look for the one POC who agrees with them on a thread like this and use their opinions to bolster their own dismissal of these topics as not important. That’s not really cool. It’s dismissive of the vast majorities of POC who would disagree with you and who have a much higher stake in this conversation.

I guess what I’m saying is maybe ask more than one single black person whether something is offensive to them before you jump to a conclusion and dismiss the topic at hand?

Aunt Jemima isn't good maple syrup.

Signed,
Canadian