Redacted route titles?

Marc, I can see where knights in white satin might be linked to KKK. I was unfamiliar with the song. At least for me - Google search all turn up references to the song, not the KKK. I see a lot of references like this LINK where the author thought the Moody Blue's song was about King Arthur. Personally, I'm in favor of renaming offensive routes, but I don't think we should rename ones where an ambigiuous name is currently perceived as potentially related to an offensive group. Disclaimer - I am not familiar with the route or the FA.

So will Mondegreens be off limits too?

B Gwrote:

Marc, I can see where knights in white satin might be linked to KKK. I was unfamiliar with the song. At least for me - Google search all turn up references to the song, not the KKK. I see a lot of references like this LINK where the author thought the Moody Blue's song was about King Arthur. Personally, I'm in favor of renaming offensive routes, but I don't think we should rename ones where an ambigiuous name is currently perceived as potentially related to an offensive group. Disclaimer - I am not familiar with the route or the FA.

Just to clarify, I am not advocating for redacting/renaming the route. I was attempting to show how it might be considered racist in response to someone who could not understand.

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

Jesus Key Rhyst you guilt ridden apologists sure are tripping over this one. You changed the name of a route and you didn't even have a first clue what it was about, or anything. Knights is a reference to the Klan? That's idiotic beyond all comprehension. You're in such a rush to go no where; triggered over-reactions. Now you're trying to justify ignorance as an excuse (its an N, not a k = SO STUPID). Just change it back and apologize already. 

It's already been stated that the intent of a thing does not matter, but the perhaps perception of it does.  You know... If somebody, ignorant or not, just might get offended.  
Although I have to admit that with the way things are going these days and so many people wanting to be offended, if anyone could be, someone will
So it's not like they 'made a mistake', they did what they set out to do.

So I've experimented around a bit. 

I tried and renamed both the routes I've mentioned in Thai.  By simply changing the words "Babes" and "Knights" in Thai then, sure enough, the route names become visible again.  My Thai colleagues all think this is quite funny.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105925309/in-thailand

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/107142510/in-white-satin

I guess my question is....so long is the name isn't offensive to the English language users base then it's fine??  

Something is off here and I reckon the community as a whole needs to re-evaluate the position, moving forward.  

Cheers,

Ben Williamswrote:

does anyone even climb anymore? Let's just erase all routes from mountain project and burn the guidebooks. 

#freshstart 

This guy is onto something.  

Just to make it clear, the original album is Nights in White Satin (1967):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nights_in_White_Satin
The remade disco version is Knights in White Satin (1976):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_in_White_Satin

To me a name that most people associate with something dark in our history is an inappropriate name. But is that enough to censure? We all have different opinion where that line is and where it can become a gray area. Three route names in similar style I have seen here on mountain project that caused discussions are (multiple routes with these names):
* Knights in White Satin
* Trail of Tears
* Final Solution
The first had plenty of discussion already, but what's your opinion about the next two?

SinRopa wrote:

A few years ago a black friend (Austin) put up a single pitch climb that he named “Cops Don’t Count.”  Without any context, it’s hard to determine what that means.  Is he saying that police aren’t people too?  That law enforcement doesn’t do math?

Fine with me either way.  
But lacking that context I simply recalled a movie line.
It was Reservoir dogs, I think.

Mr. Pink: You kill anybody?
Mr. White: A few cops.
Mr. Pink: No real people?
Mr. White: Just cops.

Let's see if I can dig that up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UaRFKQLXl8

OK, am I allowed to be offended now if my second cousin thrice removed is a cop who got shot at once?
What is the threshold for somebody MAYBE getting offended?

slightly off topic but “cops dont count” is a wonderful route name 

good cops quit 

also, abolish the police

thanks <3

C Limenskiwrote:

slightly off topic but “cops dont count” is a wonderful route name 

good cops quit 

also, abolish the police

thanks <3

Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
I only know the quote because I thought it was funny when I heard it.
But some will get offended, of course. And some are book burners.

The probability of something being banned is all about "intersectionality."
When being a book burner intersects with being offended, then you get censorship.

What exactly is the point of redacting route names anyway?

Do you think we are striving towards some sort of a better future?

No, we aren't. We are at the apex, and entropy will now take over.

The reason why I know this is because of mustard water.

This race has probably had close to 80 years to figure out how to squeeze mustard out of a bottle and not ruin your sandwich with a giant squirt of mustard water.

Not only have we not figured out how to eliminate mustard water altogether, we also are too stupid to not remember that it is always going to splash out and ruin all of the bread or bun, no matter how many times you do it. We do it over and over our entire lives. Any omnipotent species observing us for inclusion into the intergalactic community clearly sees our failures with mustard water as reason to just forget about us and move on.

I want to thank recent posts. So much good info in them. It's invaluable to see others opinions and why people think they way they do.

I think most of us agree in general concept, but not exactly were to draw the line. After reading above posts, my line shifted a little and now understand better why people think KIWS is not a problematic name.

I don't think there are many putting up inappropriate names on purpose, but sometimes it happens for whatever reason. For example, Trail of Tears is a name used in many places. One of them is a place in NH where the route has a few short interconnected cracks, making it look like tears. I am guessing that could be the source of the chosen name. In this case, maybe they didn't think of what the name they picked actually means to most people and how dark that part of our history is. I would have changed it to Cracks of Tears or some other variation. It's okay to learn, being informed and update. We all grow.

Nick said he drew the line tougher than needed originally while they figuring out where the line will be. Maybe it should have erred on softer initially, but that what was chosen.

SinRopa wrote:

Eh, I'd hope that credibility would be judged more with what someone says than under what name they say it. 

Imagine how horrified he'd be if he knew that your username is Spanish for Knights in White Satin.  (don't worry, I won't tell anybody)

JL

this seems unpopular- but isn’t this censorship just the same as trying to whitewash the past?

why not acknowledge people can be completely inappropriate and then focus on trying to do better? 

what y’all are trying to do (please everyone) is literally not possible

if you are concerned about marginalized groups have the discussion directly with the people being marginalized about how to improve things. 

this group of (majority) white dudes trying to decide what feels racist is not just laughable, it’s completely inappropriate and kind of ignores the actual problem while successfully distracting everyone involved AND allowing them all to feel like they are working on something productive 

everyone working to be an ally is very important but the past is dirty and we can’t change it. better to acknowledge what we came from than to sweep it under the rug.

an alternative would be refusing to publish the work of developers regularly putting up routes with blatantly inappropriate route names. if those routes were boycotted completely i imagine people would stop (obviously not everyone, but good luck with that)

the context that matters is not “was the band/developer trying to low key reference the klan” the context that matters is that people of color ARE going to read that and assume its a klan reference. if it is, if it is not. that matters not at all. what matters is that in the context of our history something named “Knights in White Satin” sounds racist as all hell.

what matters is moving forward as a country (and moreso as individuals) we have the opportunity to treat people of color like humans and not support oppressive, colonizing bullshit.

how about we let the database be a database and just try not to be pricks? maybe take steps to minimize this when you can in your day to day and CONFRONT PEOPLES RACISM. be anti racist. that is what will actually help this community.

what? too hard? 

as it currently stands this is 100% the climbing forum version of greenwashing. just sayyin

C Limenskiwrote:

this seems unpopular- but isn’t this censorship just the same as trying to whitewash the past?

Most people don't want to use highly inappropriate names. We may disagree where the line is but most agree in general. But we need to show something and this site elected to hide the name with the option to see the name. That is not whitewashing in my opinion. 

I also suggested an option to see the older name in cases where the routes got renamed so we can preserve history:

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/119624104/ability-to-see-previous-names-of-routes

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

Jesus Key Rhyst you guilt ridden apologists sure are tripping over this one. You changed the name of a route and you didn't even have a first clue what it was about, or anything. Knights is a reference to the Klan? That's idiotic beyond all comprehension. You're in such a rush to go no where; triggered over-reactions. Now you're trying to justify ignorance as an excuse (its an N, not a k = SO STUPID). Just change it back and apologize already. 

Dude I didn't change anything myself, I'm just trying to explain to explain why people are reasonable to get upset here (also I kinda did apologize). In the meantime, why are you so angry about this? Feels like you might be a little triggered yourself, no? 

I don't claim to be some great paragon of human rights, but what "triggers" me is the systemic exclusion of individuals based on skin color, while you're getting arguably far more "triggered" about is because somebody wanted to change the name of a 2 star 5.10 at cathedral ledge. Please look past your own experiences here, yes it is unfortunate that a few routes that were innocent were changed because of potential implications, but the far more positive trend is that a POC no longer has to be surrounded by routes named after (and not condemning) slavery, to be in one of the most popular areas of Ten Sleep.

Dude I didn't change anything myself, I'm just trying to explain to explain why people are reasonable to get upset here (also I kinda did apologize). In the meantime, why are you so angry about this? Feels like you might be a little triggered yourself, no?

Thanks for the reasoned reply. Good points and yes I’m clearly triggered myself. I’ll reflect on that and wish you a good day. Thanks.

Giorgio welcomed all races into the Knights in White Satin, so maybe that route name is ok after all.

I spoke with Giorgio over the weekend about this thread. He's redacted the album title to 'Nobleman donning silken ensembles'. Though, he doesn't have an MP account, he said to tell everyone hello